


Nightshade

by Mithen



Series: Gardens of Wayne Manor [4]
Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: First Time, Friendship/Love, M/M, References to Drug Use, References to Underage Prostitution, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-12
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:09:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce comes home after a year, but under different circumstances than he and Clark ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [夜影](https://archiveofourown.org/works/606955) by [Lynx219](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynx219/pseuds/Lynx219)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce comes home after a year, but under different circumstances than he and Clark ever imagined.

When Clark Kent went to Metropolis for college interviews, he looked for silvered-blue eyes around every corner. When he traveled to Boston’s annual flower and garden show with his mother, he seemed to see that familiar face everywhere. In Washington for his senior trip, he followed a dark-haired young man in a suit for three blocks before realizing, with a visceral wrench of disappointment, that it was a stranger.

When he almost tripped over Bruce Wayne lying on a sidewalk in Gotham, he didn’t even recognize him for a moment.

“I’m sorry!” he blurted at the huddled figure on the ground, stepping back to give some space. He was in the middle of turning away, still focused on his scathing expose of building code violations for the school paper, when he froze in place. Slowly, his breath congealing in his throat, he looked back at the person curled in a fetal position on the damp sidewalk.

Then he was at Bruce’s side, more falling to his knees than kneeling, to touch his friend’s shoulder, turn his face to the weak morning light.

Bruce’s eyes were closed, his face hollow and hunger-chiseled to something sharp and predatory, framed by shaggy, unkempt hair. He was shivering, his legs jerking spasmodically as if he were trying to run from something, and his forehead was beaded with sweat.

When Clark went to grab his hands, he saw bruising scabs on the inside of his arms, over dark-blue veins.

The breath hissed out of Clark as if he’d been struck and he rocked backwards for a moment. He looked up and down the street. The he leaned over and gathered Bruce up into his arms with infinite care. His friend was practically light enough to carry without exerting any extra power, and Clark could feel his ribs through the thin cotton t-shirt. Bruce’s hands jerked and twitched against him, but he didn’t open his eyes.

His chest tight with helplessness, Clark carried him to his beat-up car and laid him in the back seat. “We’re going home,” he muttered to the shuddering figure. As the car started forward with a jolt, Bruce groaned as if stabbed, and the steering wheel creaked alarmingly under Clark’s fingers.

Forcing himself to breathe deeply and not jam the gas pedal through the floor of the car, Clark sped through the streets of Gotham back to Wayne Manor.

When Alfred Pennyworth opened the door and saw what Clark was holding in his arms, he put a hand on the doorframe as if to steady himself, his face suddenly much older. His lips moved without sound: “Bruce.” Then he nodded. “Bring him upstairs,” he said, his voice calm.

Alfred led him to a guest room facing the gardens and turned down the sheets. Clark put Bruce down on the bed, arranging his thin, trembling limbs. Bruce rolled onto his side, curling inward with a sharp, retching noise. He still seemed to be unaware of his surroundings. “Ah,” he groaned. “No.”

Alfred materialized at Clark’s side with a washcloth. “Rub his legs,” he said to Clark. “It helps with the cramps.” He put the cloth to Bruce’s forehead while Clark hesitantly touched Bruce’s bony, shaking legs in their filthy jeans. His own hands were trembling as he tried to gently knead the spasming muscles, nausea at his own uselessness making him grit his teeth.

And then his Legion ring beeped at its special ultrasonic frequency.

For the first time ever, Clark was miserable to be summoned by the Legion of Superheroes arrive. “I’ll...I’ll be right back,” he stammered to a surprised Alfred and fled the room.

He hurried to the meeting place, although even his urgency couldn’t make him break into more-than-human speed. Living so near Alfred Pennyworth’s vigilant eye had quickly broken him of any temptation to use his powers casually on the Manor grounds. Karate Kid and Saturn Girl were waiting for him in the bubble, their smiles turning puzzled as he raced up to them. “Is this an emergency?”

Saturn Girl raised an eyebrow at his curtness. “No. It’s the opening ceremony of the Legion library, so--”

“--I can’t go.”

“--But you’ll be back almost before you’re gone!” Karate Kid blurted.

Clark had already turned to go. “I don’t care, I can’t leave my friend. I’m sorry,” he added ungraciously.

“Your...friend?” Karate Kid’s eyes widened, and Clark felt an extra jab of annoyance.

“Believe it or not, I do have friends in this time.”

“I didn’t mean--it’s just that--” Saturn Girl shot him a look and Karate Kid stopped talking, looking flustered.

“I know I could be right back, but I couldn’t enjoy myself with Bruce sick. Please send my regards,” he said, and started to run back to the Manor.

He was halfway there when he heard Saturn Girl’s familiar voice in his mind. _”We understand, Superboy. But remember...”_ A sense of hesitation and uncertainty seeped through the link. _”...remember you can’t tell anyone about us, or the future.”_

 _”Don’t worry,”_ Clark sent back as he hurried up the stairs to Bruce’s sick room, _”I’m the one who insisted you put that mental block in, remember? I couldn’t say anything even if I wanted to.”_

 _”Maybe you should give us the ring back,”_ she thought cautiously.

Clark projected vehement rejection at her. _”You told me it was safe to keep it once Brainiac 5 disabled the flight power!”_

She didn’t respond in discrete thoughts, but with a complicated melange of reactions: uncertainty, sympathy, and an odd undercurrent of something like anticipation mixed with anxiety. _”We’ll see you next time”_ she thought over the emotions, and was gone.

Clark rubbed the Legion ring like a talisman as he hurried back to Bruce’s room, where Bruce was still curled up, but shaking a little less.

Alfred looked up as he came in. “I believe he is asleep.” He stood up, looking carefully at Clark, as if wondering if he would bolt again. “I’m going to start making some food. Will you stay here with him, Master Clark?”

Clark nodded, unable to speak, unable to take his eyes off his friend.

“Bruce,” he whispered when Alfred was gone. “What happened?” Bruce made a lorn whimpering sound in his sleep that seemed to tear Clark’s heart into shreds. Clark stroked the cool cloth across his hot, parched skin and felt fury choking him. According to the Legion, he was supposed to become the world’s greatest hero, some kind of mighty savior. And his best friend had been starving, despairing, right in the same town and he hadn’t done anything, hadn’t even _known_. “Why didn't you come home?"

The room was growing dark. Bruce shuddered again, his eyes flickering wildly under pale eyelids as if caught in some nightmare. His hands clutched at the cool sheets. “I’m not--” he choked. “I can’t--” Fresh sweat started on his face, and Clark was horrified to see tears leaking from his closed eyes. Bruce took a deep breath that shook his emaciated chest. _”Clark,”_ he whispered hoarsely through gritted teeth, as a man in a desert would whisper for water.

As if a hook had been planted in his heart, Clark jolted forward from his chair, taking Bruce’s flailing hands in his. “I’m here, Bruce,” he gasped. “I’m right here. You’re home. You’re safe.”

Bruce’s eyes opened, filled with shock and confusion. For a moment he merely stared at Clark’s face in disbelief and something like wonder. And then his expression darkened, dawning joy fleeing into anger. He pulled his hands from Clark’s, his pain-whetted face sharp with fury. “Not _here_ ," he groaned, looking up at the ceiling. "Why am I _here_?” He snapped his gaze back to Clark, glaring. “What the--" He broke off, dragging in a breath as though his own vehemence hurt him.

"--What the _hell_ have you done, Clark?”


	2. Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce, Clark, and Alfred all deal (or don't) in their own ways with Bruce's homecoming. 

Clark rocked back from Bruce’s vehemence. “What have you _done_?” Bruce repeated, his voice thick with anger.

The unfairness of the accusation sharpened Clark’s response. “What have I done? I found a friend lying in a gutter and I brought him _home_ \--”

Bruce’s bony hands tightened on the sheets. “If I’d wanted to come home, I would have walked here! You had no _right_ to interfere. I was trying to--” His own fury seemed to choke him and he doubled over with retching. Clark grabbed the bowl Alfred had left and got to Bruce’s side before it turned to vomiting, although there was nothing but bile to bring up. He smoothed Bruce’s hair away from his damp, harrowed face and held him; Bruce clung to him through the spasms, his hands clenched in Clark’s flannel shirt like a lifeline. But after an agonized eternity of retching, he pushed Clark away again with a sound of disgust. “That’s exactly--” he muttered. “Damn it, _why?_ ”

Pity and anger were curdling together in Clark’s stomach. “Why didn’t I let you starve on the street? I’m starting to wonder,” he snapped. “Or do you mean why didn’t I fetch you another fix?”

A flicker of pain in dark-circled eyes; Bruce put his hands to the crooks of his elbows as if to hide the marks. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said.

“Really? Because it looks like you've been shooting up. Or do you really think I’m so stupid I wouldn’t realize?”

Bruce’s mouth was a flat, sharp line. “You don’t understand.”

“I guess I don’t,” Clark lashed back. “Of all the things I imagined you were doing for the last year, I never imagined _that_.” He laughed, tasting bitterness. “I’ve been studying, applying to colleges, I’ve been--” He started to say _\--fighting sun-eaters and intergalactic dictators_ , but the words slammed into the mental barrier Imra had given him and he merely choked. “And you’ve been right here in Gotham the whole time, right here doing drugs on the streets!”

Bruce looked away from him, thin fingers tracing the roses on the counterpane. “I needed to,” he said, very low.

“You needed to.” Clark heard the flat disbelief in his voice. “Nobody 'needs to,' Bruce. Just what were you running away from, anyway? Alfred? Your money?" Bruce stared at Clark, his eyes opaque. "Me?"

Bruce looked away. “Believe it or not, not everything is about you.”

“You’ve made that pretty obvious. Like it’s obvious you don’t need my help, or want me anywhere around. I’ll just spare you then,” snarled Clark, throwing the door open before Bruce could say anything else.

He banged down the stairs at a satisfying volume--until he met Alfred coming up. Alfred gave him a reproving look, and Clark modulated his descent from “catastrophic” to “emphatic.”

“He doesn’t want me there,” Clark announced, brushing by him.

“I fail to see what difference that makes,” he heard Alfred say, but Clark was already past him, hurrying down the stairs and into the fresh spring air outside.

He broke into a lope, heading down the grassy hill toward the sea, but he could still hear Bruce’s hectic heartbeat behind him, hear his panting breaths and the nausea beneath. If he listened closer Clark was sure he would be able to hear the very muscles in Bruce’s body spasming in pain, the nerve endings sparking agony into his mind.

He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know it. He couldn’t help Bruce, and Bruce didn’t need him, had never come to him through two long Gotham winters. Bruce was in pain and Clark could stop a bullet, but couldn’t help his friend.

The ocean was a rustling murmur all around him, rising and falling, but it couldn’t drown out the sound of Bruce’s stifled groans hissing between his teeth. Clark picked up a rock and hurled it at the sea, taking a childish pleasure in the sharp-ridged rings in the water before they smoothed out and were gone, erased by the waves. The sound of Bruce’s pain was a fire in his mind, unquenchable. Cursing under his breath, Clark glared back at the Manor--and his eyes fell on a small dark spot in the cliff.

He hadn’t been there for years, but now he scrambled up the slope and squeezed into the tiny little cave, his body just making it through the little opening.

The sound of the waves was amplified inside, a steady rushing roar. Clark sat down on the rock where he and Bruce had promised to be friends forever and put his hands over his ears, focusing on the sound of the sea, pushing the sound of Bruce’s agony away from him. Beneath the waves there was a soft rustling noise, sliced through with silvery calls no human could hear. Deep below the Manor, the bat colonies were stirring for the evening hunt.

He fell asleep there on the cool rock, with the sound of the waves and the ever-present motion of the bats a buffer between him and pain.

**: : :**

There was napalm in his bones, burning from the inside out. He hadn’t thought it could get worse. Bruce bit back another groan, grinding his teeth. This only caused the nausea to gallop up his throat again, pushing at his tongue. He swallowed hard, reminding himself there was nothing left to bring up anyway. He felt cold sweat trickle down the small of his back, felt the sheets sodden against his body. Everything seemed distant, hyper-lucid and edged with strange shadows. _Fever_. The word was a crimson blot in his mind, a small bloodstain on a blank white cloth.

The handbell on the nightstand seemed to glow in the darkness: gold and dark wood, mellowed by centuries of human touch. Alfred had insisted on leaving it there despite Bruce’s protests that he wasn’t going to ring for Alfred like some antebellum plantation owner. “I prefer it to these newfangled intercom systems, sir. Your parents used it, and it now is yours.” He had put the bell down beside the bed and it made a faint resonant noise, like a song trapped within. “Use it when you need help,” he had said.

Bruce closed his pain-etched eyes against its soft gold and turned away.

There was a faint rustling in the corner and Bruce felt his breath catch in his throat, scraping. Was it his imagination? He lay there, listening, and it was repeated, a sinister slither of sound.

He wasn’t alone in the room.

Bruce’s heart started to race as he dragged himself up onto one elbow, staring around the darkened room. It seemed empty. Clark was gone, Alfred downstairs. He was alone.

The curtains stirred.

His breath seemed frozen and his heart was hammering painfully now, his body betraying him to panic. _There’s nothing there, nothing._ Bruce fumbled for the lamp by the side of the bed with hands gone numb and clumsy.

And then the curtains billowed and _something_ came out of them, flying straight at Bruce’s face like a nightmare. A glimpse of eyes, an orange gleam in the darkness, and Bruce was a child again, helpless in the dark, alone and afraid while the unknown swarmed around him.

He groped madly for the lamp as the presence in the room veered away, then back at him, over and over as if drawn to the darkness in his heart, thumping against walls, a whisper of claws in his hair. The air seemed full of shrieking at the edge of hearing. The lamp crashed to the ground, taking the little handbell with it with a muffled _clank_ , an impotent sound lost in a vast darkness that grew ever more complete; Bruce put his hands up to ward it away, nothingness threatening to swallow him whole.

And then the light was on and Alfred was there, staring wildly. “Master Bruce, what--” He broke off and grabbed a wastebasket, bringing it down on something on the floor. “It’s a bat, sir. I’ve got it.” He looked up and met Bruce’s eyes, and Bruce was abruptly aware that his cheeks were wet. He lay down and rolled away, trying to make his heart stop pounding, trying to ease his breathing from sobs down to breaths once more. With the lights on, with Alfred there, it was obvious what had terrified him was just a lost little animal. He felt ridiculous. He felt ridiculous, and his heart wouldn’t slow down.

He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, couldn’t seem to stop--that was a symptom of withdrawal, he told himself, excessive tear production. A physical symptom. He wasn’t _crying._

Alfred must despise him, just like Clark did. Clark had seen him like this, sick and shaking on the street, track marks on his arms. Clark hated him.

He wasn’t _crying._

The spasms that seemed so horribly like heartbroken weeping turned to retching again, and Bruce curled around the pain, losing himself in it until it ebbed for a moment, leaving him wrung and exhausted, panting.

“Open your mouth.” Alfred’s voice was crisp as fresh linen, his hand on Bruce’s brow a blissful cool. Chips of cold on his tongue. “Don’t chew. Let them melt.”

Bruce let cold water trickle down his raw throat and into his roiling stomach. His teeth chattered wildly and he clamped his mouth shut.

“You’re developing a fever,” said Alfred. His voice sounded very far away, swimming in a syrup of pain. “I’m afraid things will only get worse for a while.”

Bruce opened his mouth. “Cu--Cu--” The syllable jittered wildly, jagged-edged. He hadn’t meant to say that.

“Master Clark has gone, sir.” There was reproach in Alfred’s voice, a small, hot thread that made Bruce’s stomach clench again. He tried to focus, tried to keep the weltering confusion at bay for a moment.

“I didn’t--” he started, then had to stop and re-organize his thoughts. “I needed to understand,” he said.

“Understand?”

Bruce wanted to nod, but didn’t dare. “I saw so many people throw everything away for it. Friendship. Hope. Safety. Just to...make this stop. I despised them. I couldn’t...understand. I had to. To fight it.” A fresh bout of trembling threatened to liquify his bones; he hunched into it, panting. “Had to feel it from the inside. Had to know it could be beaten. That _I_ could beat it. Alone.”

He looked up. Alfred was a smudge in the fading light, blurred in Bruce’s vision. “Now I won’t ever know,” Bruce said. “Won’t know if I was strong enough.” His hands clenched. “Can’t be _sure._ ”

The bed shifted as Alfred sat down next to him. Bruce could feel him take a deep breath, let it out. "How long has it been since the withdrawal symptoms started?"

It was not what Bruce had expected him to say. "I don't remember," he said weakly, rummaging through memories jumbled with pain, trying to piece them back together like a shattered china plate. "I'd gotten through one night, so...about twenty-four hours."

"The worst of it should take about two days." A small part of Bruce's mind, the tiny part that could still think, wondered why Alfred had this information. "So you were about halfway through when Master Clark found you." A silence in which Bruce navigated pain like a vast river. "And I'm afraid you're just going to have to accept that people will sometimes meet you halfway."

"No halfway." Bruce mumbled. "No halfway for me."

He heard Alfred sigh, as far away and small as the wrong end of a telescope. “You have learned so much about fear and pain and solitude,” he said after a moment. “But my boy--” He stopped and took another careful breath. “--Perhaps there are other things that are valuable to learn. About trust, and compassion. Not feeling it for others,” he added when Bruce opened his mouth. “No. I know you need no lessons there, child.” A cool hand smoothed sweat-soaked hair back from Bruce’s brow, and Bruce clamped his teeth tight over another random jag of sobbing that clawed up his throat. “But perhaps about accepting it for yourself.”

“I don’t want _pity_.” Bruce managed to turn the incipient sobs into a convincing snarl.

"If you continue like this, sir, you certainly won't have to worry about that." Alfred’s voice was sharp, and Bruce could hear pain beneath it to match his own. Then he sighed, and his voice gentled. “However, the difference between pity and compassion is also a valuable lesson to learn.”

He said nothing more, just sat by Bruce through the night, a silent presence. It didn’t ward off the nightmares that stalked Bruce’s fevered, exhausted soul, but nothing could do that.


	3. Forsythia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark is avoiding Bruce and Martha is getting fed up with him.

Martha Kent was arranging forsythia branches in a blue ceramic pot, bright arches of gold blossoms like rays of sunshine in bloom. “There,” she said as she put the last one in place. “How do they look?”

Clark didn’t look up from the newspaper he was reading. “Fine,” he said, glaring down at it.

“Good,” his mother said. “Now take them up to the Manor and give them to Bruce.”

“What?” Clark’s head snapped up and he transferred his glare to his mother.

“You heard me. It’s been a week since he came back--”

“--Only five days, and he didn’t _come back_ , I dragged him here against his will--” muttered Clark.

“--And you haven’t been up to see him once since the first day.” She put the pot of forsythia on the table in front of Clark with a thump.

“I _told_ you that he--”

“--Clark. Joseph. Kent.” Clark winced slightly; his full name meant his mother meant business. “You know perfectly well that it doesn’t matter. He is your _friend,_ and he needs a friend.”

“How many times, Ma?” Clark was on his feet now, the newspaper crumpled in his hand. “How many times is he going to leave me here and come back and expect I’ll just be his friend again like nothing’s happened, when he obviously wasn’t thinking of me _at all_ \--”

“You’re so sure of that.” Martha Kent’s arms were crossed. “Tell me: when did you add telepathy to your list of dazzling powers?” She shook her head. “You know, I’ve met your friends from the Legion, and they tell me you’re going to be a great hero someday, but if you can’t find it in you to be kind to one of your oldest friends right now, I don’t really see how.”

Stung, Clark grabbed the pot of forsythia along with the crumpled newspaper. “If being a hero means I have to be some kind of _chump_ , maybe I won’t,” he shot back over his shoulder as he banged the door behind him.

It was difficult to maintain his mood of righteous indignation while carrying a blue bowl filled with brilliant yellow flowers, but Clark clutched the newspaper tighter and stewed all the way up to the Manor.

He entered without knocking--over the years such formalities had fallen away--and stomped into the morning room.

He turned to go, and a voice in the library said “Alfred? Are you back already?”

 _Just leave without saying anything_ , Clark thought. _Just go._ But he was already in the hall, then looking into the library.

Bruce was at his father’s old desk, writing in a notebook. He was dressed in pyjamas that hung on his gaunt frame, and his cheeks were hollow, but his eyes were lucid, the long lashes framing the same pale steel blue that Clark had imagined for a year. Something thumped hard under Clark’s breastbone, a bright bird full of song.

Bruce looked up, but at the sight of Clark in the doorway his face closed off. He shut his notebook with a thump and slid it out of sight, as if Clark were a spy, and Clark felt the thump in his chest switch abruptly back to anger.

He was turning to go when Bruce’s voice stopped him: “Since when do you need glasses, anyway?”

**: : :**

That was what was different, Bruce realized. It hadn’t registered through the haze of pain and fever he’d been in, but now it was obvious why Clark’s face had seemed strangely unfamiliar. The dark-rimmed heavy glasses did odd things to the angles of Clark’s face, obscuring his high cheekbones, turning the eyes behind them from that unearthly azure to a common blue.

It wasn’t just the glasses, either. Clark _stood_ differently, slouching instead of the straight, direct figure Bruce remembered. His clothes fit all wrong and he looked like he’d put on weight. Everything about his body language screamed of insecurity and uncertainty. It seemed impossible: how could he possibly have changed so much in just a year?

Bruce realized a flush was creeping into Clark’s cheeks and he looked away, breaking what had become an uncomfortable stare. “I just suddenly needed glasses, I guess,” muttered Clark.

“So quickly? I mean--”

“--It's been more than a year since--you know what, just drop it, all right?” Clark looked wretched, and Bruce wondered if he’d stumbled onto a painful topic without meaning to. Or maybe Clark was just really uncomfortable around his druggie ex-friend, Bruce reminded himself, a sharp pang making his jaw set. Speaking of which...

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Ma cut some flowers and told me to bring them up.” Clark shrugged around the big bowl of flowers, a cascade of yellow that Bruce had hardly even noticed.

The terseness in his tone shrieked along Bruce’s nerves like ragged fingernails, sharpening his tone. “You can leave them on the desk, then.”

Clark’s eyes narrowed and he moved into the room to put the pot down on the desk near Bruce. He was clutching a newspaper in one hand, and a glint of gold caught Bruce’s eye. Without thinking, he reached out to touch the ring on Clark’s hand. “What’s that?”

Clark pulled back his hand like Bruce’s touch burned him. “It’s nothing,” he said.

The ring had a stylized “L” on it, with a star inside the angle of the letter. “Have you got a girlfriend?” Bruce aimed for “teasing,” but somehow his tone sounded almost bitter.

“I--I--no! No, it’s not that at all,” Clark stammered. “It’s--some friends and I, we’ve got kind of a club. A club for...” He paused, looking almost desperate, “For...talking about comic books and stuff,” he finished in a rush.

“Oh.” Bruce blinked. The idea of Clark hanging out with a bunch of other kids and talking about Flash Gordon and Zorro was...He felt an ambushing surge of loneliness, too painful to look at closely. He seized it ruthlessly and transmuted it into something less bleak, reminding himself that while he’d been starving on the streets and eating rats for the last year, Clark had been reading comic books with his little club. “That’s nice,” he said, managing a distant smile.

The scarlet flush swept up into Clark’s face and his eyes narrowed. “Just forget it,” he snarled. “You’re way past stupid kiddie things like heroics and stuff, I get it.” He tossed the crumpled newspaper down on the desk. “I thought you might--but never mind, it’s obviously nothing _important._ ”

He stalked out of the room and was gone, leaving Bruce alone with the creased newspaper.

His hands shook slightly as he unfolded it, he noted. Apparently he wasn’t fully recovered yet. Beneath his fingers, the headline leapt out:

**”Juror Recants in Cobblepot Case: Appeal Probable”**


	4. Scarlet Knights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce each do some planning, some sulking, and some discreet stalking.

“Explain your brilliant reasoning to me again, Superboy.”

Clark glared at Brainiac 5, who looked impassively back at him. “I _told_ you, Saturn Girl has to remove the mental block from my mind.”

"That was your assertion, yes, I followed that. One's _reasoning_ is usually the _reason_ one gives for something. It's most typically in the form of a sentence beginning with 'because...'"

“Because I _need_ to tell Bruce what I’ve been doing!”

Brainiac 5 raised one golden eyebrow. “Perhaps in the twenty-first century the word ‘need’ has a different nuance of meaning than it has in these more civilized times. Because it sounds to me more like you _want_ to tell him.”

“He--he--” Clark suffered a vividly painful flashback to standing before Bruce, tongue-tied, struggling to explain the Legion to him and having to resort to calling it some kind of _fan club_. “He thinks I’m a _dork_ , Brainy!”

This time Brainiac 5’s eyebrow spoke eloquent volumes.

“I just--” Clark struggled for words, to make himself clear. “I can’t stand it, Brainy! The way he looked at me--I’m telling you, if Saturn Girl won’t remove the block, I’ll find some way around it to tell him, I swear I will--”

The impassiveness fell away from Brainiac 5’s face, to be replaced by a cold fury laced with disdain. “You callow dunce! Change the course of history, and the greatest mind the universe has ever known--" He gestured at his own chest, "--could wake up in some Apokliptican slave pit tomorrow morning. You are meddling with forces you couldn't even _begin_ to understand and you risk disaster at a level _even I_ can barely comprehend. For what? Your pride!” His eyes narrowed. “Listen to me well, Kal-El. If you cannot bear humbling yourself for the sake of the greater good, if you cannot tolerate people misunderstanding who you truly are--then you are not the hero we were always lead to believe.”

Clark looked down at the bright costume, swallowing. “Anyone else would be all right. But it’s... _Bruce_ ,” he finished wretchedly.

He braced himself for another torrent of scolding from the Legionnaire. When none came, he looked up to catch a fleeting look of sympathy on Brainy’s face. “Superboy,” he said, almost awkwardly. “I know this is hard for you. But we trust you to do the right thing, because you’re...the world’s finest.” He grimaced as if annoyed at himself and turned to go. “Trust in the future,” he said softly at the door, face turned away. "If not in us.” Then he pivoted to look back at Clark, his expression back to its normal annoyance. “And _try_ not to do anything _too_ stupid,” he sneered, and was gone, leaving Clark almost relieved at the final gibe. A sympathetic Brainiac 5 was almost more alarming than fighting Mordru.

**: : :**

The time sphere faded away, Dream Girl and Cosmic Boy’s forms dissipating as they waved goodbye, and Clark trudged back to his little bungalow, happy to be back in his real clothing. The Legion was awesome, but sometimes it was so jarring to be called “Superboy” and “Kal-El” all the time--names which seemed to mean a lot to the Legionnaires, but were meaningless to him. He always had fun in the future, but he always missed being Clark.

His eye fell on the collection of clippings and notes on his bed and his good mood soured once again. “Juror Recants!” “Alleged Threats by Police Produced Guilty Verdict.” “Four Years Later, Smuggler May Go Free.” He picked up one clipping with a name circled in red pen: “According to Cobblepot’s attorney, famed Metropolis defense lawyer Bobby Crawford, ‘My client is a victim of a frame-up by the notoriously corrupt Gotham police.’” In the margins Clark had scribbled “New attorney? Why Metropolis?”

Clark frowned, tapping the clipping with a pen. “Metropolis...” he muttered.

“Clark?” His mother’s voice came from the kitchen. “Do you have time to prune the Scarlet Knights? I didn’t have a chance to get to them this morning.”

“Sure,” Clark said, putting down the clipping and joining his mother. “Ma, I was wondering...would you mind if I drove to Metropolis tomorrow? I was hoping to visit M.U.’s journalism department.”

“There won’t be many people on campus on a Saturday,” she frowned. “And the driving in Metropolis...”

“Ma, I drive in Gotham all the time! That’s way worse than Metropolis.”

“But it’s an unfamiliar city,” she started, then let the sentence trail off. Clark saw her purse her lips. “Good heavens,” she said, sounding almost irritated with herself. “Why am I fretting about your safety?”

“Because you’re my Ma?” he suggested, and enjoyed her smile in response.

“Mothers are allowed to worry about their boys, no matter how special they are.” She kissed him on the cheek, then turned away to dry some dishes. “Are you...serious about M.U.?”

Clark glanced up, but she was focusing intently on a glass. “I’d come back every weekend.”

“Of course you would,” Martha said heartily. “And M.U. is an excellent university.”

“I might not even get accepted there,” Clark said. “And Hudson’s really good too...”

“But your heart is set on Metropolis,” Martha finished.

“Well, not exactly,” said Clark, but he could hear the irresolution in his words. The truth was he had fallen in love with Metropolis. But not the actual city--no, his love was all for the gleaming megalopolis it would become in a thousand years, with its fluted spires and brilliant lights. The real Metropolis seemed rather mundane in comparison. In his mind, Metropolis would always be the City of Tomorrow, the city where he was first a hero.

The Legion had never given him details, but he assumed Gotham was going to be his home base when he was an adult. After all, Gotham needed so much more help than her more sedate sister. He hoped he could have something to do with Metropolis becoming the ever-bright vision it would be in the future, but Gotham had to be his main focus.

His mother suddenly flicked the tail end of the drying cloth at him, and Clark broke out of his reverie. “I’m sorry?”

“I _said_ you had better get to work on those Scarlet Knights,” she said pointedly, and Clark laughed and bowed before heading out.

He had finished clipping the stemmy branches of the roses--in a few months they’d have heavy crimson blooms, but right now they were just a bare tangle of briars--and was going to check on the Polar Stars in the moon garden when he caught a flicker of faraway movement out of the corner of his eye. There was something in the gazebo at the southeast corner of the gardens, the one overlooking the ocean.

He should just go home, he shouldn’t even--but his alien vision seemed to collapse the distance between him and the gazebo involuntarily, the yards crumpling into nothingness, until it was as if he stood within, looking at Bruce Wayne.

Bruce was doing push-ups, his eyes fixed on the floor of the gazebo, his arms moving mechanically up and down. There was sweat beading and dripping off his brow, and his breath was coming hard and hoarse, but his pace didn’t slacken, even though his arms were trembling.

He was also shirtless, Clark realized abruptly. Sweat was trickling down his sides, glistening on ribs far too prominent, his chest heaving with his breaths. And he wasn’t _stopping_ even though he had to be far past the limits of his endurance. Clark could nearly _hear_ his muscles and sinews screaming protest as they pressed the skin, and he just kept going, pushing, driving himself beyond bearing.

Clark felt some kind of sound struggling in the back of his throat, a groan of protest or denial. He wanted to rush to the gazebo and yell at Bruce to stop this insanity--he wanted to knock his arms out from under him, force him to rest, hold him until his breaths eased--he wanted to hold him--he wanted to--

Bruce’s arms gave out as if someone had taken a sword to them, and then he collapsed and lay there face down, his body shuddering with panting breaths. For a long time he just lay there, sobbing with exhaustion. Then he finally, laboriously rolled over. Long, sweat-soaked hair stuck to his face as he stared at the ceiling, his pale eyes clouded and glassy with pain.

Clark tried to relax and realized his hands were clenched; looking down, he saw the twisted remains of the pruning shears, bent into a tesseract of anguish. How long had he been watching Bruce? It felt like hours of helplessness. His chest was aching as though he’d breathed pure vacuum, locked tight around a snarled knot of emotions. _Bruce..._

Bruce was still lying on his back. A pale spring breeze stirred his damp hair and he closed his eyes at its touch on his face.

Then he rolled over and started doing push-ups again with ruthless precision.

Clark turned from the sight, from his own reaction, and fled homeward.

**: : :**

“You can’t keep doing this,” Alfred noted as he entered the bedroom.

Bruce kept his eyes closed, in part because he was afraid to discover he was too exhausted to open them. His whole body was aching, his arms felt like the nerves had been replaced with white-hot needles--but it was the pain of weariness, not the pain of withdrawal, and he reveled in it. He was weakened, he needed to build up his muscle mass, his endurance. But he wasn’t broken.

“I have to,” he said.

Alfred sighed and closed the curtains so the early afternoon sun didn’t fall on Bruce’s face, then started to lay out a lunch beside the bed. Bruce could hear the clink of china and silver, smell orange juice and steamed spinach.

“You didn’t tell me about Cobblepot’s retrial,” Bruce said

The quiet sounds of meal preparation paused. “I didn’t wish to disturb your convalescence.”

“It’s ridiculous. Claiming Gordon intimidated a juror. He wouldn’t do that. Who would say that? And why?” Bruce opened his eyes and pulled himself to a sitting position with some effort. “It was an open and shut case. The police wouldn’t need to frame him.”

“I would never underestimate the mendacity of the Gotham police, sir.”

“And why bring in a famous lawyer from Metropolis? How could Cobblepot even afford him?” Impotent anger roiled in Bruce’s gut. Gordon’s reputation smeared, Cobblepot free again, all the good work he and Clark had done together undone--

_He and Clark together--_

“Sir,” Alfred said, his voice alarmed, “Are you all right?”

Bruce realized he was panting, furious gasps for breath, his whole body shaking with anger. He forced himself to relax. “I'm going to Metropolis tomorrow.”

“Sir--”

“--I saw in the paper that the Wayne Enterprises branch in Metropolis has had excellent profits last quarter. I’d like to give the manager there my regards,” Bruce said. He looked up at Alfred steadily.

After a moment Alfred bent back to preparing lunch. “I’ll pick out a suit for you,” he said softly.

**: : :**

Twilight was falling as Bruce put down his notebook and rubbed his eyes. He’d finished recording all his thoughts about the physiological and psychological effects of heroin addiction an hour ago, and had moved on to making notes about the Cobblepot case. The jurors on the case were a matter of public record, but he’d have to go to the library and search the newspapers and legal documents. Then he’d have to go through and investigate each one, looking for any unexplained changes in their lives recently, anything that might hint at why someone would recant now.

He stood up and went to the window. His eyes went involuntarily to the Kents’ bungalow, a glimmer of light among the firs. Slightly to the north, he could see the spreading beech where their treehouse had been. And under it--

Bruce drew back into the shadows of his room for a second, then realized that the figure sitting at the base of the tree was lost in a book and hadn’t noticed him watching.

Clark was sitting on the ground, turning the pages of a large book he was holding on his knee. It was almost too dark to read, but Clark hadn’t seemed to notice. Bruce couldn’t see the title of the book from his vantage point, but he could see Clark push his glasses irritably up on his nose. There was a glint of metal on his hand--that ring, Bruce realized, the one with the “L” on it. L for...League? Bruce wondered what Clark’s group of friends called themselves. Clark wouldn’t have called another group the League of Valor. Would he?

He was being ridiculous, Bruce thought. _He_ was the one who’d walked away. Did he think Clark would never talk about Zorro or Narnia or Lensmen with anyone but him? Besides, that was all make-believe. He’d put all that away.

So why, he wondered with a sinking, wretched feeling, would he almost have preferred the ring belong to Clark’s girlfriend?

Of course, Clark had probably had girlfriends in the last year, too. Like Roxy. Bruce could remember vividly--far too vividly--the night he had helped Clark practice for his date with her. Clark’s tongue teasing his. Clark’s hand tightening on his shoulder, pulling him close.

Clark’s voice saying Roxy’s name.

Had he kissed Roxy later? Had it ended there? If he’d kissed Roxy the same way he’d kissed Bruce, Bruce had no doubt Roxy would have been willing to do anything at all with Clark. Anything at all.

Bruce realized his hand was clenched in the heavy brocade curtains, the fabric trembling like water in his grip. He let go of it and turned away from the sight of Clark Kent reading where the Secret Fortress used to be, would never be again. He had turned his back on all that, and Clark had no reason to hold him in anything but contempt.

He sat down and did situps until he was almost too tired to move, too tired to imagine Clark’s hands and mouth.

Almost.


	5. Metropolis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an amazing and unexpected coincidence, Bruce and Clark happen to run into each other in Metropolis.

_”What are **you** doing here?”_

Clark and Bruce glared at each other, the sound of their voices in unison hanging in the air between them. Bruce felt a sudden, childish urge to yell “Jinx, you owe me a Coke!” but fought it off by reminding himself that he was _angry_ at Clark. Bruce didn’t want him here, Bruce didn’t _need_ him here, and he _definitely_ didn’t want Clark to know why he was actually in Metropolis.

“I’ve applied to Metropolis University. I wanted to check out the campus.” Clark crossed his arms and glowered, looking surprisingly intimidating for a teen in thick glasses and a hideous polyester suit. “What are _you_ doing here?”

Bruce produced a scowl to match Clark’s glower. “Wayne Enterprises has a branch here. I'm visiting it today. Unless you have some objection to that?”

“It’s a free world.”

“So I thought.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They stood there, glaring at each other. Then both of them turned and started to walk north.

“I believe Wayne Enterprises is to the _south_ , isn’t it?” Clark observed, shooting Bruce a sideways glance.

“Well, the M.U. campus is to the _east_ , if I remember right.” Bruce tried to speed up and lose Clark, but Clark just increased his own pace until they were striding ridiculously fast along the sidewalk.

“Stop following me,” snapped Clark.

“ _You’re_ the one following _me_ ,” Bruce growled. He pulled to a stop, keeping his gaze anywhere but on the marble-and-gilt “Bobby Crawford, LLD” sign across the street. “What are you, my guardian angel? Afraid I’m here to continue my junkie ways in another town?” His voice came out more bitter than angry, to his horror.

Clark grimaced and made a helpless gesture in the air between them. “I’m not--Bruce, I--” Then his face went suddenly abstracted, watching over Bruce’s shoulder. “Hey, that’s--” He broke off, his face closing up again.

“That’s what?”

“Nothing,” Clark said as Bruce whirled to follow his gaze. “It’s nothing.”

A man was leaving Crawford’s offices. He glanced both ways, then slipped into an alley. “That’s George Liles. Cobblepot’s henchman.” Bruce was already tailing George, keeping a safe distance between them. “He’s had some plastic surgery, but it’s him.”

He slipped behind a dumpster as Liles waited for a light to change. Clark crouched beside him. “You recognized him?” he whispered in Bruce’s ear.

 _As if I would ever forget the face of a man who held a gun to Clark Kent’s head,_ Bruce thought irritably. “So did you,” he hissed.

“I’ve got a good memory.”

“So do I.”

“This is dangerous,” Clark said as they followed Liles. “We shouldn’t be doing this. He might recognize us.”

Bruce snorted. “He’d have a hard time recognizing you. You don’t look anything like you did six years ago.”

Clark looked away from Liles to Bruce for the first time. “You really think so?” The glasses hid his eyes; his voice sounded somehow both pleased and sad at the same time.

“Well, we both look totally different now,” Bruce said as he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a window, hollow-cheeked and wiry, his hair still long and straggly.

“And are we?” Clark moved ahead to keep up with Liles and Bruce couldn’t see his face. “Totally different now, I mean?”

Bruce made a “hhr” sound in his throat, a habit he’d gotten into when he wasn’t sure what to say and wanted to buy some time. Liles chose that moment to speed up, and Clark and Bruce had to break into a run and cut across a small park to make up some space, ducking behind a hedge at the last second to stay out of sight.

Bruce looked over at Clark, crouching by his side. Clark was breathing heavily, winded by even that short burst of speed, but his thick glasses couldn’t hide the eagerness in his eyes as he hunted down a lead. Despite himself, Bruce felt a smile tugging at his mouth. “Maybe not,” he said. “Not where it matters.” He reached out and thumped Clark on the chest with a fist, hard enough that he wouldn’t be tempted to let the touch linger at all. Then he straightened hastily and kept moving, unwilling to wait and see if Clark responded at all, if he smiled or reached out in turn.

He didn’t want to look too closely at how he would feel if Clark didn’t.

Liles finally turned down a narrow alley and knocked on an unmarked door, which opened. There was a glimpse of two people inside the building before the door closed. "That's funny," said Clark. "I know those two guys. They're Bruno Mannheim's bodyguards."

"Mannheim." Bruce frowned. "The name doesn't ring a bell."

"He's a businessman who's had an increasing amount of influence in Metropolis over the last year. Why's he meeting with a thug of Cobblepot's?"

"Maybe Liles has had an epiphany and decided to go straight, and Mannheim is helping him out?" Bruce suggested sweetly.

Clark shot him a narrow glare. "I'm a positive thinker, but I'm not an idiot," he said. "I don't know, it all seems fishy. Cobblepot suddenly has a bigshot Metropolis lawyer, his man Liles leaves the lawyer and makes a beeline here, it's all--hey, wait!"

Bruce was already moving, hurrying to the back of the building where Liles had entered and finding a fire escape to clamber up onto.

"What are you doing?" Clark demanded as Bruce started up the fire escape.

"Keep your voice down," said Bruce. Clark swung up onto the fire escape after Bruce. "Don't follow me," whispered Bruce. "It's dangerous."

"I didn't come to Metropolis to sit on my hands while Cobblepot perverts the justice system!"

"I thought you came to Metropolis to visit the University," Bruce noted, and was rewarded with an annoyed look.

"I thought _you_ came to visit your offices!"

"Hhn," Bruce said, and started quietly creeping up the rusted fire escape.

Clark made a strangled noise in his throat and followed him. Bruce winced, anticipating the rattling _clank_ of steps on metal grating, but Clark's footfalls were surprisingly muted.

Cautiously, they inched up the corroded stairs.

They were at the sixth floor when they heard the voice of George Liles, muffled by the window. "--and so Crawford sent me here to tell you so, sir." Bruce's eyebrows lifted at the respect, bordering on obsequiousness, in the man's voice.

"Good. Good." Bruno Mannheim's voice was heavy and lifeless, a force that pressed the energy out of things. "Everything is going as planned. And you're sure Cobblepot can be trusted? He won't go squawking to Sionis?"

If a voice could cringe, George Liles's did so. "He sure can, Mr. Mannheim, sir! Mr. Cobblepot's an honorable man, a man of his word, he is--awk!"

"Honor," Mannheim observed dispassionately as Liles continued to make strangled choking noises, "Is such a meaningless term." There was a _thump_ and Bruce could hear Liles take a deep, whooping breath. "I prefer enlightened self interest, myself. I believe I can trust Cobblepot to make himself useful one day in return for his freedom. And his continued well being."

Bruce didn't dare to risk even turning his head to look at Clark, but he could feel the tension in his body, crackling tight. They listened as Liles babbled assurances in a newly hoarse voice, and Mannheim dismissed him, apparently without listening. The following conversation between Mannheim and the other people in the room was an almost absurdly banal discussion of which of the three delis in the area had the best pastrami on rye, culminating in a placed order, but Bruce and Clark had to endure through it, unmoving on the fire escape until everyone left the room and they could slip back down unnoticed.

Back on solid ground, they waited until they had casually strolled a couple of blocks to let out huge breaths of relief. Clark sagged to the curb and rested his face in his hands for a moment. "I get the distinct impression Bruno Mannheim is not a strictly legitimate businessman," he said in a muffled voice.

"That's your keen journalistic instincts at work," Bruce agreed, his own voice a little shaky.

Somehow, he realized, it had become more upsetting rather than less to imagine Clark in danger.

"We need to go to the police," Clark said, looking up. "We need to--"

"--tell them we conveniently overheard Bruno Mannheim saying vaguely ominous things to Oswald Cobblepot's thug?" Bruce shook his head. "We don't have any hard proof. They'd probably just think we were doing it because it hurt our pride to potentially see Cobblepot go free."

"Which it does." Clark was looking down at his hands.

"Well. Yeah."

"It was our first case," Clark said, not looking up. "We did something really good together. The two of us. I couldn't stand--" He broke off, shaking his head.

"I know," Bruce said, and Clark looked up at him, squinting behind the ugly glasses. "I know." He held out his hand and Clark took it, allowed himself to be hauled to his feet. "Let's get going."

"What? Where?"

Bruce shrugged. "First things first. You need to visit the university. I need to stop by the branch office." Clark continued to look at him, face unreadable beneath shaggy dark hair. "Then we'll go back to Gotham. And we'll...find out which juror is recanting and why." Clark said nothing, and Bruce scowled. "You know I'm going to, and I know you're going to, so why not do it together?"

After a moment, Clark nodded. "Together."

**: : :**

“It’s such a beautiful city,” Clark said, taking another sip of soda and looking out the diner window at the soaring skyscrapers, their Art Deco spires flaring into the sky. “I guess I’d kind of hoped--wished--that it didn’t have some of the same problems Gotham does.”

“Human beings are the same in every city.” Bruce’s grim tone was mitigated slightly by the fact that he was currently drinking a chocolate malted, but Clark sighed.

“I just hate to think of it,” he muttered. This Metropolis was only the seed of what it would become in a thousand years; Clark felt an absurd protectiveness toward it, a desire to keep it safe, let it blossom. He shook his head. Metropolis would have to find its way without him.

“The university looked good,” Bruce said as if trying to cheer him up. “And you saw some of the useful research Wayne Tech is doing down here with nanobots.”

Clark couldn’t help but smile at the memory--not of Wayne Tech’s impressive laboratories, but of the look on the branch manager’s face when Bruce Wayne had suddenly strode in to ask for a tour. “They’re doing good work. The anti-coagulant the medical division is working on would be great. And that new bulletproof weave will go over big with the police if we can get the cost down.”

“Yes,” said Bruce. “I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on that project. It looks promising.” He frowned. “Mannheim,” he murmured as if to himself, looking worried.

“There’s always those who wants to pull down what someone builds,” Clark said, hearing the discouragement lacing his voice.

“When did you get to be such a sourpuss?” Bruce reached out and tapped the ring on Clark’s finger, a fleeting touch. “You’re obviously hanging around the wrong people.”

“Oh, it’s not them,” Clark muttered. “They’re all...really positive.” Almost _too_ cheerful and optimistic at times, actually. The Legion always seemed so serenely confident that Clark was going to weather all the storms of adolescence and emerge this great shining hero, someone so gallant and brave Clark felt like he didn’t know him at all.

 _Superman_ wouldn’t feel bored when sitting through another awards ceremony. _Superman_ wouldn’t find himself afraid when facing down a fleet of alien invaders.

 _Superman_ sure wouldn’t be sitting here wishing Bruce Wayne would touch him again, feeling awkward and stupid and gawky.

“So do I get to meet them? Your friends,” Bruce said when Clark stared.

 _“What?”_ Clark almost broke out into a cold sweat at the idea of the Legion, with their bizarre views about life in the twenty-first century, meeting Bruce. Brainiac 5 would probably ask him if he had electricity in his home, or if he rode to work on a horse. “No, no, that’s impossible.”

“I see,” said Bruce, and Clark wanted to kick himself, because Bruce’s face had gone remote and closed again, and it was obvious what he was thinking, and there was no way, no way _at all_ to say “It’s not that I think you’re not good enough to meet them, it’s that they’re from the future, and I’m an alien, and someday I’m going to dress up like a lunatic in blue tights and save the world on a weekly basis.”

Clark didn’t really even believe that last part himself.

“Let’s go,” Bruce said, heading for the door as Clark sputtered and choked on his blocks and secrets.

Clark caught up to him halfway to the next light. “Did you drive?” he asked.

“Took the train.”

“Let me give you a ride back to Gotham.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’d like--”

“--I’m _fine_.”

Clark reached out to grab Bruce’s shoulder, but Bruce shrugged his hand off and kept walking, his head down, strides eating up pavement. “Damnit, Bruce--!”

Bruce stopped so suddenly in the middle of his sentence that Clark almost ran into him. “What the--” Clark started, then stopped as he realized Bruce wasn’t looking at him at all. He was looking across the street at a movie theater marquee, its blocky letters spelling out:

**”Coming This Weekend, the Tenth Anniversary Re-Release: The Gray Ghost.”**

“Ah,” Clark said, a quiet exhalation, almost a sigh. They stood and looked at the marquee in silence for a long time, at the old poster showing the Gray Ghost looming from the shadows.

“Was it good?” asked Bruce.

“What?”

“The Gray Ghost movie. Was it good?”

Old pain corkscrewed in Clark’s chest, melding with the newer anguish and longing into a strange bittersweet melange. “I never saw it,” he said. Bruce looked at him, and Clark couldn’t help smiling, just a little. “I promised I wouldn’t see it without you, remember?”

“I remember,” said Bruce.

“It wouldn’t have been the same without you,” said Clark. “Most things...most things aren’t.”

Bruce glanced at him and then away again, his eyes a sharp, sudden gleam in the twilight. “We’ll need to get an early start in the morning, if we’re going to go looking for Cobblepot’s jurors,” he said. “And driving is faster than the train. Would you...mind giving me a lift?”

Clark swallowed. “Sure thing.”

They filled the hour back to Gotham with conversation: journalism and engineering, Mannheim's conversation, the jury process. It was almost friendly. They talked about Cobblepot's sentencing and Liles' plastic surgery, about the M.U. campus, about the gas mileage of Clark's car.

They talked about all the things that were important, but none of the things that really mattered.


	6. Investigations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce investigate their leads, but the key revelations are on more personal topics.

The train clattered over the bridge toward Gotham, swathes of spring sunlight cut into squares by power lines and girders falling across its passengers.

“Where do we even start?” Clark looked down at the list of twelve names in the little black notebook. On the opposite page was a map of Gotham, with twelve numbers penciled in.

“Let's just start at the top,” Bruce said.

Clark frowned. "But these three--" He tapped the fourth, sixth, and ninth names on the list, "--They're all in roughly the same neighborhood. It would make sense to check them out in a bloc."

Bruce shook his head. "Patton's address looks close to the others, but Knowles park is between them. You have to go around the whole park--and trust me, you had _better_ go around the whole park--and that puts it in a totally different neighborhood. Mireles' grocery is practically in the middle of the East End, and Chen's address is a block of old brownstones nearby."

"Well, we should start there anyway, since you know the area. Plus the nearest stop is right on this line." Clark penciled in light circles around the two names, and after a moment, Bruce nodded.

As the train rattled along, Clark sneaked glances at Bruce out of the corner of his eye. Gone was the sharp pinstriped suit of yesterday in which the heir of Wayne Enterprises had visited his domain; today Bruce was dressed in jeans, sneakers and a black t-shirt with white letters: _I failed the Turing test._ There were still dark circles under his eyes, though a quick scan showed that the scars on his arms were fading. He looked for all the world like a normal teen studying on the train, and not at all like someone who did pushups until he collapsed from exhaustion.

The East End managed to seem gloomy even in bright daylight, with peeling graffiti on the walls and piles of garbage on the street. "Don't go that way," Bruce said warningly as Clark peered down a dark, narrow alley. "That's going into Black Dragon Gang territory, that's trouble we don't need."

Clark skirted a puddle of puce vomit and grimaced to himself.

The Mireles house was a small place, sandwiched between blocks of decaying flats. The teal paint was faded but not peeling, and the lace curtains were clean despite being yellowed with age. A glint of red light near the front door caught Clark's eye and he nudged Bruce. "They've got a security system. It looks brand-new, too."

"A state of the art security system on a house that still has a decades-old air conditioning unit in the window," said Bruce. He jerked his chin slightly toward the yard. "They got a new dog, too."

"How can you tell?"

"There are dog toys in the yard, but they're not really worn or faded by the sun yet. Toys made for a pretty big dog, too. Let's keep moving," Bruce said as the lace curtains shifted in one window.

They strolled away from the house, keeping their gaze elsewhere. "How about we go to Mireles Market and see what's up there?" Bruce said. "It's about ten blocks north of here."

Clark nodded, and Bruce set off unerringly, with the unconscious confidence of someone who knows an area intimately. Clark followed more slowly, frowning as the neighborhood became increasingly familiar. By the time Bruce stopped in front of a restaurant with red awnings, Clark's hands were bunched in his pockets and his stomach was knotted. _There, it was right over there._

Bruce flashed him a smile, seemingly oblivious to Clark's turmoil. "This place has the _best_ pizza," he said. "We should stop and get some."

"You eat here often?" Clark heard the tightness in his voice and looked away from Bruce's face.

"Well." Bruce chuckled a little. "Not _inside_. But the dumpster out back was one of my favorite dining spots on Tuesdays--they have a buffet, that means a lot of wasted slices." His smile fell away as Clark wheeled away from him, crossing the street. "Hey, where are you going?" he said, hurrying after him.

Clark's spine felt stiff, almost brittle; it turned his stride into a stalk as he cut left into an alley. "Here," he said, looking at the cobblestone street. "It was right here."

Behind him, Bruce's voice was puzzled. "What was here?"

Clark turned on him. " _You_ were! Don't you even _remember?_ This is where I found you."

Bruce looked toward the entrance of the alley. "Here?" He looked confused, peering around the garbage-strewn street. "I must have been totally out of it," he muttered under his breath to himself. "This is way too close to East Side Kings territory, not at _all_ a safe place to crash." He looked at Clark, his eyes narrowed. "What were _you_ doing here all alone? You shouldn't have been here."

"I was--You _weren't moving_. Your skin was cold when I touched you, and I wasn't even sure if you were--" Clark broke off and looked away from Bruce's darkened eyes. " _Why?_ " he heard himself say thickly. "I don't understand, Bruce--you were right here, right in Gotham, _starving_ , and at any time you could have called us, we would have come and helped you. You could have bought a _dozen_ pizzas, you didn't have to root in a dumpster _as if you didn't have anyone who cared about you at all!_ " His voice cracked and he shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the street, unable to look at Bruce. "What were you running away from? What was so...so horrible you had to do this to yourself?"

He heard his voice run out and stood there shaking, waiting for Bruce to storm off, to yell at him, to simply turn and leave him alone. He waited a long time. Then Bruce said, "I made a vow once. A long time ago." His voice was cautious, careful. "I made it in front of you. I don't know if you remember."

"Of course I remember," Clark managed.

"I was eight years old. Children vow a lot of things. Sometimes they're just...childish. Sometimes they're not possible. And I began to wonder, what if I didn't really mean it? What if it was just a fantasy, a child's fantasy." There was a pause. "I had to find out if I was willing to do whatever it took to get there, or if I was just...playing. And then..." Bruce took a deep breath. "Do you know how hard it is for Bruce Wayne, last heir of the Waynes of Gotham, to test himself? I'd go to a dojo, and I'd beat every student there on the first day. And the _sensei_ would say 'You are so skilled, Mister Wayne, train with me, Mister Wayne,' and I would see the greed in his eyes, the sycophancy in the students I had defeated. And I wouldn't know if they had let me win. I couldn't _know._ "

A sudden shift in movement, as if Bruce had started to punch the wall and stopped himself.

"I could go to Hudson University, I could take classes there. I could study chemistry in Wayne Hall, take lessons from the Kenneth Wayne Endowed Chair for the Sciences. I'd get excellent grades, of course I would! It would be easy." His voice turned savagely inward. "It would be _easy!_ That was the problem. Was I as smart and as determined and as capable of enduring as I needed to be, or was I buying myself reassurance with my name? If it was the name, then I was just wasting my time, playing stupid vainglorious games. So I made myself a deal, that Christmas, that last night I saw you."

Clark almost turned then at the sudden ache in Bruce's voice, but he held himself steady, listening.

"I set myself a year. A year to prove that even with home just a few miles away, I could do it. To prove that I could starve and freeze and fight on the streets to live, that I could get by on my wits and my skills. Without my name or my money, with both of them just a few minutes away. There were two conditions for failure. If I cracked at any point and called for help, used my position to make life easier, then my vow was annulled. And if I ever harmed a person who was not hurting others, I was done. If either of those two things happened, I told myself, I'd go home, go to college, become...I don't know. A teacher, a doctor. Live a normal life and stop dreaming of being something impossible."

"It was more than a year," Clark said, his voice small in the darkness.

Bruce's chuckle sounded almost surprised. "Yes. I told myself I'd live in each of the worst six neighborhood for two months each and get to know them from the ground up, but I hadn't thought of some things. Like the fact that no one homeless stays below Sixth Avenue in the winter because there are no heating grates there, or that I might need to stay an extra month in one neighborhood because I'd found...a job there that needed finishing." His voice went grim for a moment that hinted at nightmares. "And there were...other things I needed to do, things I came later to believe I needed to understand."

Clark heard sneakers scrape on the cobblestones, but was still unprepared to feel Bruce's hand on his shoulder, even more unprepared to hear Bruce's next words. "Thank you, Clark. For bringing me home. Probably for saving my life. I'm...pretty sure I haven't said that yet."

His hand was still on Clark's shoulder. It was warm. "No," said Clark. "You haven't."

"Probably Alfred thanked you on my behalf," said Bruce. "But that doesn't count. This is another thing I need to be able to do on my own." Laughter touched his voice for a moment. "This might be harder." The hand on Clark's shoulder tightened. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Clark muttered, still unable to look at him.

Bruce made a surprised sound and suddenly the hand on his shoulder was running down his bicep, squeezing slightly. "Hey," said Bruce, "You're actually really--"

Clark pulled away from the touch, turning away from Bruce's startled eyes. "Let's get to Mireles Market," he said hastily, making sure to slouch as he headed back out of the alley.

Bruce stared after him for a moment before following.

**: : :**

Mireles Market had bins of bananas, onions, and oranges out on the sidewalk under a faded sign. "New security system here too," Bruce observed. "It must have taken a big chunk of any savings they had."

Clark watched "So the question is, who is Mireles protecting himself from?"

"It's fishy," Bruce murmured. As they watched, a tall, thin man with salt and pepper hair began to wheel the bins into the store. "That's Hernando Mireles," said Bruce. Mireles pulled the shutters down on the store, shooing away some customers who tried to enter.

Clark glanced at his watch. "It's pretty early to be closing shop."

"Mireles usually stays open until ten," Bruce agreed. "There's definitely something going on here." He made a growling noise in his throat. "If only we could get some better information!"

Clark shot him a quick glance, feeling a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I've got an idea," he said.

**: : :**

Bruce almost dropped his little binoculars and had to stop himself from scrambling down off the roof to grab Clark. “What the _hell_ are you doing, Clark?” he hissed helplessly to himself.

When Clark had suggested Bruce take up a surveillance position on the roof, Bruce had assumed that Clark would do the same on the opposite side. That they’d collect information, maybe go through the trash, the usual.

Instead Clark had walked right up to the Mireles door and rung the doorbell.

Bruce watched Clark stand on the doorstep, one foot scuffing nervously. The door opened a crack, and Clark started to say something, but immediately dropped his notebook and pen. He crouched, scrabbling for them, and the door opened up enough to reveal a large black Doberman staring Clark in the eye, its teeth bared.

Clark recoiled and fell on his behind, staring up at the dog and the man behind it, who was frowning at the ridiculous figure sprawled on his doorstep.

Bruce was too far away to hear what Clark said, but from the way his hands gesticulated wildly it was something placating. Mireles put a hand on the snarling dog’s neck and it subsided, still glaring. Clark tried to pick up his notebook but dropped it again, shooting a nervous look at the dog. Mireles rolled his eyes and picked up the notebook to hand it to Clark. Clark said something else, and Mireles frowned, but opened the door enough for Clark to step into the house.

Incredulous, Bruce moved to a new position on the rooftop to get a look at the inside of the Mireles living room. Clark was sitting on the edge of a chair, his shoulders hunched, looking up at Mireles through his dark, shaggy hair. He looked so cowed that Bruce felt a sudden urge to straighten his shoulders and tell him to stop cringing. He was talking, earnestly.

Mireles had his arms crossed and was shaking his head. Bruce could see his face well enough to read his lips: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

There was a motion in the back of the kitchen and Bruce saw a girl slip from the staircase to edge into the room. She was maybe eleven or twelve, with the coltish look of someone who had yet to grow into all of her limbs. Her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was watching the conversation intently.

Bruce watched her face carefully.

Eventually Mireles seemed to reach the end of his patience. “Get out,” Bruce saw him say. “Now.”

As Clark rose he, said something else to Mireles, and the man’s face tightened further. But he kept the Doberman on a tight leash as he showed Clark the door.

Clark’s shoulders sagged further as the door closed behind him.

Bruce scrambled down the fire escape on the far side of the building and caught up to Clark as he stood on the sidewalk, irresolute.

“Gee, that went great,” sighed Clark. He shook his head. “I told him I worked for the high school newspaper and was doing a story about Cobblepot’s recent retrial, and how awful it would be if a criminal like that went free. He denied knowing anything about it, but he’s the one, I can tell.” He kicked a rock on the sidewalk. “But I didn’t get through to him at all. Or get any useful information. I just--”

“--Don’t be too hard on yourself,” said Bruce. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.” He pointed to a place across the street. “And wait a bit,” he added mysteriously.

Clark sipped his coffee moodily, staring down at the table. “Stop moping,” said Bruce. “I can tell you, your act works really well.”

Clark stopped in mid-sip, eyeing Bruce warily. “What?”

“The act. The spiel. You know, the whole _Golly gee, I’m so inept and clumsy, I’m no threat to you at all,_ thing you’ve got going on there.”

Clark didn’t look gratified. If anything he looked frightened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh come on,” Bruce scoffed. “An aggressive alpha-male could never have even gotten in the Mireles door and you know it. You’re playing it up,” he said admiringly. “The ugly, unflattering clothes, the thick glasses--I bet you don’t even need them,” he said, grabbing them off Clark’s face. Clark made an inarticulate protest, his eyes squinted shut. “Okay, I guess you do,” he said hastily after looking through them. Clark grabbed them back and put them on, looking indignant. “But you’re practicing having an innocuous persona so you can get people like Mireles to trust you.” Bruce nodded. “I think it’s smart.”

“You do?”

“Sure,” Bruce said, taking a sip of his coffee. “But you can’t let many people get as close to you as I did earlier, or they’re going to figure out you’re damn toned under the slouch.” Bruce remembered with shocking vividness the feel of Clark's muscular shoulders under his hands, the powerful arms. It hadn't been what he'd expected at all. Bruce tore his mind from the memory of the sensation, trying not to show how flustered it was making him feel.

“I can’t let people get close,” Clark mumbled. “No.” He started to say something else, but Bruce cut him off with a gesture.

“Don’t look directly,” he said. “The sidewalk to your left.”

The girl from the Mireles house went by, her dark ponytail bobbing underneath a Knights baseball cap. The Doberman was trotting obediently at her heel. As she went by the cafe she glanced over at Clark, then kept going without any change in expression.

“That’s--”

“--I know,” said Bruce. “Finish your coffee.” He tapped Clark’s cup. “I think you had more influence than you thought.”

**: : :**

The girl turned left into an alley, and Bruce and Clark followed her. The low growl of the Doberman bounced off the brick walls, and she put her hand on its head. “Hush, Placido,” she murmured, and the improbably-named dog quieted.

Clark walked up to her while Bruce hung back a bit, letting his face stay shadowed. “Who’s your friend?” the girl said, glancing over at him.

“He goes by Tony,” Clark said. “He’s helping me. My name’s Clark Kent.”

“I heard,” she said. “I’m Renee Mireles. You were talking with my father.” Her jaw set. “And you’re right, he’s the one. Some men came to the house--they told him he had to.”

“How much did they offer him?” asked Bruce.

She shot him an angry glare. “My father can’t be _bought_ ,” she snapped. “But...I have a little brother, and...” Her voice faltered. “They said my brother was cute, and that I was...almost a young woman. That I had a bright future ahead of me. But I'm not stupid," she said, lifting her chin. "I knew what they meant. Papa did too."

Bruce felt his fists tighten. Clark nodded again. “I see.”

She sniffed hard, once. “But it’s not right, I know it’s not,” she said fiercely. “Papa hates it, and so do I. Can you...can you help?”

Clark glanced at Bruce with a hint of a question in his eyes. Bruce chewed his lower lip. “If we had definite proof--saying who this boss was and proving he was threatening you--then the police could act on it.”

“The police,” she said, her forehead wrinkled dubiously. “I don’t know--”

“You can go straight to Jim Gordon,” Bruce said. “You can trust him, I promise.”

“But how can she get proof?” said Clark.

“I’ve got a tape recorder,” she said. “They come back every couple of nights to...check on Papa. If I can catch them saying something...could the police use that?”

Bruce felt a flare of excitement. “That could work.”

Clark was frowning. “It’s dangerous,” he muttered. “I just wanted you to confirm--I didn’t want to get you involved--”

She lifted her chin, eyes narrowed. “But I am. And I’m not an idiot. This is bigger than me, bigger than Cobblepot, too. It could be bad for _everyone_ , for all of Gotham. You need my help.”

“She’s right,” said Bruce. Clark still looked mutinous. “Clark, we weren’t much older than her when we were running around in the dark getting shot at by smugglers.” The corner of Clark’s mouth twitched, almost a smile, and Bruce knew he--and the girl--had won.

“How will I get in touch with you if I get the tape?” Renee asked. “I’m sure they’ll be back sometime this week, but I can’t call you, and you don’t want to be caught hanging around...”

Clark grimaced thoughtfully, then brightened. “I know. That movie theater on the corner. We'll go see the Gray Ghost movie there on Friday at seven. You can pretend to be going to see another movie and catch us as we come out. Gives us all an excuse to be there.”

She nodded quickly, then glanced toward the mouth of the alley. “I have to get back before my parents start to worry. I’ll see you on Friday and give you the recording, if I can get one.”

“Excuse me?” Bruce finally found his voice as Renee slipped out of the alley. “The Gray Ghost movie? Are you serious?”

“Why not?” Clark’s smile was blinding. “We need an excuse to be in the neighborhood--and I did promise not to see it without you, right? Why not now?” His smile faded. “Do you not want to see it?”

“It just, I don't know, kind of sounds like a date,” Bruce said teasingly.

Clark reddened slightly and looked away. “Don’t be stupid,” he muttered. “We’re just going to a movie together. Friends do that--we can do that, right?” He looked at Bruce, his eyes shadowed and unreadable behind the thick glasses. “Right?”

Bruce fought a crazy impulse to take Clark’s glasses off again, to try and see if his eyes were still the impossible shade of blue he remembered. “Right,” he echoed. Clark grinned, relieved, and Bruce made a mental note to stop teasing Clark about things like dates, since it obviously made him so uncomfortable.

Which was natural, because Clark was _straight,_ after all, Bruce reminded himself.

No matter how much Bruce might be wishing otherwise.


	7. Spring Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days before the rendezvous with Renee are filled with sunlight, books, and a friendship tentatively reforged.

“What's this?” Bruce said blankly.

Clark held out the squishy, brightly-wrapped package. “Happy belated birthday,” he said with a shrug. “Missed it by a couple of months, I know.”

Bruce carefully loosened the tape and eased out the cloth inside, unfolding it to reveal a Gray Ghost t-shirt. “Hey, wow,” he said. “I didn’t know they had these.”

“They’re special for the re-release,” said Clark. “I wasn’t sure it was the right size.”

“It looks it,” Bruce said, holding it up against his chest.

“Try it on,” Clark urged. “I want to make sure. I can return it if it doesn’t fit.”

Bruce hesitated, then mentally kicked himself. There was no reason to be self-conscious around Clark, after all. Clark was his oldest friend.

But he still turned his back a little as he shrugged off his sweatshirt, feeling oddly vulnerable.

Clark hissed breath between his teeth. "Where did you get _that_?"

Bruce started to ask what he meant when a warm finger touched a point on his back on his right shoulderblade.

"Oh," said Bruce as carelessly as possible considering the light touch was making his skin prickle in startling ways. "Someone decided it would be a good idea to jump me and try to take my socks."

The finger slid down his shoulderblade, curving with the scar until it reached the edge of his ribs. "You could have _died_ ," Clark said.

Bruce focused on keeping his breaths even. "Well, I didn't. I'm pretty tough." He picked up the t-shirt, hoping his hands weren't unsteady.

"How many other scars have you gotten?" Clark's voice was curious. Did he intend to run his fingers along all of them, Bruce wondered? The thought made him feel somewhat giddy, and he fought down a sudden bubble of inappropriate laughter.

"Not too many," he said as he pulled the t-shirt over his head. "I was usually better at dodging. Of course, I still have the scar from that time I fell down the well and broke my arm, remember?" He waved his arm at Clark, with the pale, thin scar that ran over his right elbow.

"I remember," said Clark, reaching out to trace his finger lightly along that scar as well, whisper-warm on Bruce's skin.

Bruce wrenched his mind away from the tiny line of cool fire. This was ludicrous, bringing up ancient scars in the hope Clark would touch him again. He remembered he had a tiny scar on his inner thigh--and forced himself to change the topic. "See, it fits," he announced, turning around to face Clark.

"Happy birthday," said Clark, grinning. He tilted his head and pushed up his glasses with one finger. "So...this is the first day of my spring break. The movie isn't until Friday. What do we do until then?"

Bruce stared at him, looking for some sign of pity or condescension, but Clark's gaze was as open and direct as it had always been. His throat tightened and he looked away, knowing that more than anything, he wanted to spend time with Clark. As much time as possible. "I haven't had many chances to read in the last year," he said. "Have you got any good books to recommend?"

Clark's eyes lit up. "Fiction or nonfiction?"

"Either. Anything. Anything you enjoyed."

"Oh, you have to read _The Left Hand of Darkness_ ," said Clark. "I spent the whole time reading it wondering what you'd think. And I've been reading about astronomy, Carl Sagan, it's really fascinating--" He broke off as if he couldn't contain himself. "--Let's go to my place now, I can loan you a pile."

"Well..." Bruce hadn't seen Martha Kent since his return and he found himself hesitant to face her.

But Clark was an irresistible force. "Let's go," he repeated, reaching out to tug Bruce by the elbow, his eyes shining.

What could Bruce do but follow?

**: : :**

He needn't have worried about Mrs. Kent, of course. She pulled him into a hug, then held him at arms' length and tutted over his weight, ruffled his long hair, and hugged him again. "I have some apple crumb cake with your name on it, young man," she announced.

"Not all of it, I hope," mumbled Clark from his bedroom, where he was already digging through stacks of books.

Bruce peeked into the bedroom, which was not the tidiest. The one chair was heaped high with papers and books, which left sitting and reading on the bed together as the only other option.

Bruce's mind threatened overload at the idea of sharing a bed with Clark, even just reading.

"We should read outdoors," he said. "It's not too cold, and there's still a few hours of sunlight."

Clark looked up from a book. "How about the gazebo? The one at the corner of the moon garden?" He held out a book: a barren icy landscape on the cover.

"Sounds perfect," Bruce said, taking the book from him.

"Not until after the crumb cake!" Martha Kent's voice came from the kitchen, and they looked at each other and broke out laughing.

**: : :**

"No!" Clark woke up with his heart pounding, the sound of his muffled protest still hanging in the air. Pearly, diffuse light filtered through the window; it was still hours before dawn.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. When he'd felt angry and betrayed by Bruce, it had been easy to cling to that rage and not think about what Bruce had been through during the last year. But hearing him talk so casually about the dangers from roving gangs yesterday, seeing his scars-- _touching_ his scars--had awakened fierce and anguished images of Bruce suffering from hunger and cold and pain. He had wanted, more than anything, to smooth his palms over those ridged lines as if he could somehow erase what caused them. It had been agony to stop. But Bruce's reticence, his stiffened posture, spoke of traumas that Clark wasn't even sure he wanted to contemplate, nightmares worse than the ones that stalked Clark's sleep.

Bruce needed his space now. He needed room to heal and feel safe, a place that was stable and reliable. No surprises, no sudden changes. Changes like your best friend running his hands all over you, or kissing the white line that ran along your back.

Clark rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but when the morning sun touched his face his eyes were still open.

He threw on jeans and a sweater and went to the kitchen, grabbing a granola bar from the cupboard. His mother looked up from the table, taking in the paperback copy of _Foundation_ in his hand. "Come back at lunch time and I'll have sandwiches made for the two of you."

"Don't worry, Ma," he said, tossing the wrapper in the trash. "I haven't forgotten that the roses need more peat moss. I'll get to it in the afternoon."

"Oh, there's no rush, dear," said his mother absently. "I'm sure you'll get to it."

"It's just that I haven't seen Bruce in so long, and who knows how long we'll have this time, and--"

"--Clark." She looked at him over the tops of her reading glasses for a long moment. "Bruce makes you smile. That's more valuable to me than all the roses in the garden. Now, no more apologetic nonsense for wanting to spend time with your friend, do you hear me?"

"Yes, Ma," he chimed a bit sheepishly.

"Run along and have some fun," she said, waving a hand at the door. "You're too serious, always worried about your responsibilities. Enjoy yourself a little bit."

He gave her a quick hug and she watched him run up the hill toward the gardens, shaking her head slightly.

**: : :**

Clark hurried along the twisting paths of the moon garden toward the gazebo. The beds were full of white narcissus and crocuses, nodding in the meandering breeze. The air was heavy with the scent of loam and sap, growth and new life.

He rounded a corner and found, with no sense of surprise at all, Bruce standing in the center of the garden. He was looking at the angel statue, but when he saw Clark, he smiled. A bird sang out somewhere in the hedges, a long liquid thrill of song that felt like Clark's reaction to that smile. Bruce held up his book, pointing it toward Clark so he could see the bookmark lodged nearly at the end. "I couldn't put it down," he said.

"I thought you'd sleep in later," Clark said as they fell into step together, following the white-graveled path toward the southeast corner. He almost reached out to give Bruce a playful punch on the arm when he said it, a teasing tap, like any friend would do, it was totally natural--and stopped himself with an effort. It wasn't a _friendly_ impulse that made him want to touch Bruce, as if to see if he was really there. It wasn't friendship that made his fingers ache to ruffle that shaggy hair, let it slip through his fingers like shadows. _Don't invade his space._

They passed under the crabapple tree in the corner, its branches a creamy mass of white tossing in the breeze, and went up the stairs to the little gazebo. Clark raised his eyebrows to find that two beanbag chairs had been placed there. Bruce dropped into one of them and laughed at Clark's face. "Alfred insisted on scrounging up a couple when I told him we'd be reading out here."

"I find it hard to imagine Alfred deigning to touch a beanbag chair," Clark said, grabbing the other one and sinking into it with a pleasant squishing sensation.

Bruce scooted his over so it touched Clark's, leaving them back to back. "Shush," he said. "Genly's about to teach Estraven how to mindspeak."

Clark shushed, digging into his own book and soon losing himself in the intricacies of psychohistory. It was a warm April day, and the sunlight inched across the white-painted gazebo floor like a sleepy cat. The sound of the sea rose and fell gently, and for a long time there was only the two of them and their books, like old times.

Then Clark heard Bruce sigh, long and low. After a silence, there was a rustling noise as he turned pages quickly, as if looking for something. Then Clark heard him say very softly, almost subvocalizing:

_Light is the left hand of darkness_  
and darkness the right hand of light.  
Two are one, life and death, lying  
together like lovers in kemmer,  
like hands joined together,  
like the end and the way. 

Clark felt his face grow hot, and suddenly he wondered what he had been thinking, giving that book to Bruce. He swallowed hard. No, it wasn't quite like old times at all.

He sat, feeling prickly and uncomfortable, until Bruce said, "That was good." His voice was thoughtful. "I'll have to think about it for a while. But it was really good."

"Do you have anything else to read?"

The beanbag chair made a _scrunching_ noise as Bruce shook his head. "I trust your recommendation," he said solemnly.

"A heavy responsibility indeed," Clark jibed.

Bruce waved a hand at the edge of Clark's vision. "Fetch me another," he drawled.

Clark jumped to his feet and saluted. "Immediately, sir!"

Bruce's snicker followed him down the garden paths toward the bungalow.

His mother was putting the final touches on two roast beef sandwiches. "I was beginning to wonder if you two would ever get hungry," she said, tucking them into a basket. "By the way," she added, her voice so casual it immediately warned Clark something was up, "You have an envelope from Metropolis University."

Clark picked it up off the table. It was thin. That was good, he remembered distantly.

"Well," said Martha, "Are you going to open it? Or just use your x-ray vision to skip that step?"

Clark shot her a laughing glare and ripped open the letter, unfolding it. _"Dear Mr. Kent, We are pleased to inform you..._

"I got accepted," he murmured, and behind him his mother huffed a small laugh.

"Of course you did. Silly boy." There was a tense note to her voice, and Clark put his arms around her from behind as she slipped two napkins into the basket. She put her arms up and clasped him close for a moment.

"I don't have to go," he said. "Hudson is a good school."

"Clark Joseph Kent," she said. "You've been jaunting _a millennium into the future_ for the last year, I think I can survive you being a few hundred miles away." She patted his hand. "It's time, Clark. You can't stay at the Manor forever. You're going to change the world." She picked up the basket and handed it backwards to him. "Now take some food to that emaciated friend of yours. I don't think Mr. Pennyworth is feeding him well enough, he still looks like a skeleton."

A few minutes later, Clark was heading back to the gazebo with a laden basket and a copy of Heinlein's _Glory Road_. When he reached the gazebo, he started to say something, then realized Bruce's eyes were closed and his breath coming slow and easy.

Clark sat down, careful not to make too much noise or jostle Bruce's chair, and watched his friend's face. He slipped the acceptance letter out of the book, running his fingers along the university seal, then refolded it and slid it into _Foundation_ , a little white fragment of the future. There was time to think about that later.

For now, it was enough to watch Bruce sleep in the sunlight.


	8. Movie Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce go to the movies on their not-date and meet Renee Mireles. It doesn't go as smoothly as planned.

Clark looked at himself in the mirror, frowning. He couldn't do anything about the hideous glasses, and he owned nothing at all that was stylish or cool-looking. So a sweatshirt and jeans it was, apparently.

The gold ring on his finger glinted, and Clark ran his finger over the "L." His Spring Break had gone by without a single call from the Legion. Any other week and Clark would have been frustrated and bored, but this week--this week had been different.

This week he'd spent with Bruce.

They'd read a stack of books, debating them--Bruce had little patience with swords and sorcery, the harder the science the better. They'd weeded and mulched together while Clark felt dizzy with the scent of Bruce's sweat. Alfred and Martha had both seemed to take Bruce's physical condition as a personal challenge, so there was a never-ending supply of food from both Manor and bungalow. They'd gone to the library and found a lot of information on Bruno Mannheim, none of which was conclusive but all of which was ominous.

And Clark had refrained from touching Bruce the whole time.

His restraint had cost him dearly in sleepless nights spent tossing and turning and imagining how it would feel to kiss each rib of Bruce's body, to run his hand across that lean, sinewy abdomen. But he wasn't, he _wasn't_ going to crowd his friend, no matter how hungry he was to touch his vertebrae like rosary beads, counting each precious thing about him.

Clark fussed with his bangs, which never seemed to fall right. He'd taken to wearing his hair slicked back in his visits to the thirty-first century, except for one unruly curl which insisted on falling across his forehead. But that left his face too open, too bold. So shaggy bangs it was, even if Clark felt they didn't really make him look...attractive. At all.

He huffed out a sigh. He should be focusing on the meeting with Renee Mireles, which was the reason--the only reason, he reminded himself--that Bruce was going to a movie with him. He was excited and nervous about potentially getting some evidence against Mannheim, of course.

He'd also be sitting next to Bruce for almost two hours in a dark movie theater.

Maybe their knees would touch. By accident.

**: : :**

Bruce tilted his head to get better light on his chin. Was that the beginning of a pimple? "No way," he muttered to the scowling image in the mirror, disgusted. He held up his arms, still too thin, and rubbed at the fading scars in the crook of his elbow as if he could erase them. He'd wear a sweater to cover them up, he decided.

Though maybe if he didn't, maybe he could teasingly jostle Clark for the armrest between them. Maybe they could compromise by sharing the armrest. And if Clark were also wearing a t-shirt, then maybe their arms would be against each other...

Bruce glared at himself in the mirror. Pitiful. The fact of the matter was that he'd been craving Clark's touch since he returned to the Manor. He wanted to touch and be touched, to wrap Clark in his arms and pull him close in a delicious delirium of contact. He wanted--badly--to believe it was just that he'd been too long without human contact, that any person's touch would do. But it wouldn't, and he knew it. It was Clark. It had been Clark for longer than he liked to admit.

He suspected it would be Clark for longer than he liked to think about.

Bruce remembered Clark's recoil at the idea that tonight was a date, and watched the Bruce in the mirror's face flicker with chagrin. The movie was just an excuse to him, a chance to meet Renee. It wasn't anything more.

Grimacing, he grabbed a sweater out of a drawer and pulled it on like it was armor.

**: : :**

The train's rhythmic clacking was a soundtrack to Clark's nerves as they rode in to Gotham together. He still felt uncomfortable about exposing Renee Mireles to danger like this. He could, of course, have used his super-hearing to prove that Mannheim was threatening Hernando Mireles' family in order to get a mistrial called for Oswald Cobblepot. He might even have been able to confirm his suspicion that Mannheim was hoping to use an indebted Cobblepot to help expand his operations into Gotham.

But the eavesdropping of a super-powered alien was hardly going to stand up in court as evidence.

"I'm worried about her too," murmured Bruce beside him, looking out the windows of the train as the buildings rattled past. He shot a tiny, reassuring smile at Clark.

Clark took a deep breath. "I got accepted to Metropolis University," he said.

"Of course you did," Bruce said. His smile had turned just a touch smug, the smile of a talent agent who spotted an actor before they became a star.

"I don't know if I should go."

"What?" Bruce frowned.

"I just..." Clark waved vaguely at the city outside the train.

Bruce made an uncomfortable noise and sat in silence for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had a note of reluctance in it, a touch of reticence. "I've always felt..." He paused as if searching for words. Clark waited. "That you were bigger than Gotham," he finished in a rush. He stopped speaking for a moment, head tilted to the side, considering. "It always felt kind of strange to me that I was the one out and traveling, and you were staying in Gotham."

"Because I wasn't born here," Clark said. "So I'm not really a Gothamite."

Bruce shook his head vehemently before Clark could even register that he'd been hurt at the implication. "It's not that. It's just...your scope seems bigger than one city." He shrugged with the distinctive discomfort of a man who is usually adept with words and finds himself at a loss for the right phrase. "I don't know. I just think it's time you explored more than Gotham."

Clark saw in his mind the gleaming Art Deco towers of future Metropolis, the lightning-raked mountains of the planet Winath. The tender curve of the Earth when seen from space, rich with life. He'd seen so much in the future, and so little in his own time.

"Besides," Bruce said, his voice low enough that it barely traveled over the sound of the train, "You'll come home to the Manor now and then, right?"

Clark glanced over at him, but Bruce's face reflected none of the uncertainty that had touched his voice.

"Always," said Clark.

**: : :**

Clark settled into the plush velvet theater chair. "Maybe we should have arranged to meet her _before_ the movie," he murmured to Bruce. "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to concentrate."

"What, you don't want to see the movie?" Bruce whispered back, the hint of a smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. "I don't know about you, but I've been waiting ten years for this."

Clark just shook his head, wishing he could be as cool about it all. It was strange that as Superboy he'd faced down galactic criminals without blinking, but this was rattling him so badly.

Of course, the Legion was full of telepaths, aliens, shapeshifters and warriors, all trained in combat. It wasn't his alarmingly-thin friend and a pre-teen girl defying the wrath of what looked to be an up-and-coming crime boss.

Danger was so distressingly relative.

The lights went down and Clark found himself sitting in the darkness next to Bruce as the trailers ran.

And then the screen blazed with light and the trumpeting opening chords of the _Gray Ghost_ theme song rang out.

Without any transition at all, Clark was an eight-year-old boy again, his heart leaping. He felt wool under his fingers and realized that he'd reached out and grabbed Bruce's arm without thinking. Bruce turned, and Clark could see his teeth gleam in the darkness, a sudden and heart-stopping smile, entirely unguarded: _Isn't this cool?_

That smile made it impossible to move his hand off of Bruce's arm until after the opening credits were done.

**: : :**

The closing credits scrolled up the screen as the lights slowly came up. Everyone else was standing up, stretching, moving for the doors, but Bruce couldn't help but take a moment to sit and let the movie linger in his mind.

It showed its age, of course--not that Bruce had gone to many movies in the last decade, but the special effects were outdated and the costuming a bit outmoded. But still.

"Geez," Clark said beside him, a wistful sigh. "When he came up out of the fog that first time--!"

"Mmm," Bruce nodded, remembering the rush of something like awe mingled with an almost instinctive fear he'd experienced, prey confronted by a predator. "They got that just right, didn't they?" He shook off the remnants of the movie like wisps of mist. "Okay, we'd better head out."

He could feel Clark tense slightly. "Right." Together they rose and exited the theater into the night.

Outside, the sidewalk streamed with people, but there was no dark, bobbing ponytail. "Maybe she couldn't--" Bruce started to say, when beside him Clark hissed under his breath, more to himself than to Bruce, and turned to walk down the street. Bruce hurried to catch up. "What are you doing?"

"I've got a hunch," Clark said. Then he ducked into the dark, narrow alley that ran alongside the theater.

Bruce suffered a brief, unpleasant sense of _deja vu_ as they went into the shadows. This was a different movie, a different theater altogether, he reminded himself.

Yet when he saw the two broad-shouldered, looming thugs backing Renee Mireles into a corner of the alley, the _deja vu_ threatened to become nausea for a moment.

"See, little lady," one of the thugs was explaining, "My partner Otto here, he saw you slip a tape into your pocket as you left your charmin' abode earlier, and I thought that was kind of funny. I says to Otto, I says, 'She don't have a Walkman or nothing, so I think that's maybe a tiny bit suspicious.'"

"So maybe you oughtta be handin' it over to us," added the other man with a helpful air. "So's we can check it out." He held up a small tape player. "We'll just give it a quick listen, and if it's My Little Pony or somethin' we'll give it right back to ya, we promise."

"But if there's anything suspicious-like on this tape, me and Otto are gonna have to go back and have a little talk with your old man."

The first guy cracked his knuckles loudly enough that Bruce could hear them at the mouth of the alley, and Renee jumped. "I...I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

He slammed a fist against the wall next to her head, and she yelped. "I'll say it nice and simple, _chica_ ," he drawled. "Give us the tape."

Clark suddenly shambled forward, shoving at his glasses. "Uh, hi, hey, hello," he stammered. "I was wondering where the SunDollers was?"

The two thugs stared at him. Renee did too, her eyes huge in the darkness. "Move along, squirt," said the meatier of the two. When Clark came closer, the man suddenly put a hand on his shoulder and shoved. Clark stumbled into a trash can, which crashed loudly. "You don't want to be here all alone."

Bruce had already slipped through the shadows to come up behind them. "And what if he isn't alone?" he asked.

The two whirled to face him. Then Otto shook his head, sneering. "What if he ain't?"

Neither he nor his friend looked at all intimidated at the sight of a skinny guy in a sweater and a teen in thick glasses, and Bruce felt a sliver of panic slide between his ribs. He shoved Renee toward Clark, getting between her and Mannheim's men. "Run! Get her out of here!" he yelled.

Then he launched himself at Otto.

In better circumstances, he could probably have taken out at least one of them, maybe both. But he was still weak, low on muscle mass and stamina, his reflexes still dulled from recent starvation and withdrawal. His fist connected with Otto's nose, and it must have hurt, but then Otto just shook his head and barked a laugh, swinging a massive paw at Bruce in turn.

Bruce dodged, but the man's hand clipped the side of his head with almost three hundred pounds of weight behind it, and white light exploded behind his eyes for a moment. Then the other thug grunted a curse and Bruce heard something smack against bone.

"Leave him alone!" screamed Renee Mireles' voice from close, far too close. Bruce looked up to see the other thug wiping blood off his face as it ran into his eyes. The rock she had thrown skittered across the ground. Clark had a hold of her left arm and was gaping at the scene.

"Damnit, get her out of here!" Bruce yelled as the bleeding thug lumbered toward them. Otto produced a gun, ridiculously tiny against his bulk, and pointed it at Bruce, stepping forward. Bruce braced himself to roll away--and then Otto's foot suddenly slipped and he went down in a heap, cursing.

Bruce gathered himself up, vaulted over Otto--his foot connecting squarely with the man's gut-- and sprinted past the other man, grabbing Renee's other arm as he went.

"What do we do now?" gasped Clark.

"We run," said Bruce.

And so, with Mannheim's two goons close behind them, they ran.


	9. Breaking Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Clark deal with Mannheim's thugs--and with the aftermath.

Clark felt hot sparks behind his eyes as they ran. The thug had _pulled a gun on Bruce_. It had been all Clark could do not to hoist the man above the skyscrapers of Gotham. Instead, he'd had to settle for freezing a patch of ground under his foot, giving Bruce time to scramble away.

He heard again the _thwack_ of Bruce's hand hitting the goon's nose, heard the _thud_ of Renee's rock smacking against the other one's forehead, and felt a crazy rush of exasperated affection at all the fragile, unspeakably brave humans who threw themselves into danger without heat vision or invulnerable skin.

"Help us!" screamed Renee as they pounded down the street. The bystanders who didn't simply turn away and ignore them merely looked shocked and vaguely concerned. No one raised a hand to help.

"This way," said Bruce, pulling them down a dark alley that looked much the same as any other alley. There was a chain link fence at the end, and Mannheim's men chortled as they closed in on them. But Bruce ducked to the left at the last second, where there was a small hole in the fence, just big enough for three teens. Not big enough for hulking thugs.

Renee didn't need any prompting; she scrambled through and the boys followed her.

"Here," said Bruce after a few more blocks. His breath was starting to hitch a little. "They'll be over that fence soon. Have to hide. Then get you to the police station."

They rounded a corner at a dead run and Clark saw a group of kids standing in front of a liquor store. "Tony!" called one of them. "You okay, dude?"

"Marc. We need a place to hide," said Bruce shortly.

"Sure, man," said Marc. He turned and gestured to a dumpster tucked into an alley; another kid threw open the lid. "Hop in."

The stench from the dumpster was agonizing, but there was no time to argue. Bruce, Renee, and Clark scrabbled in and the lid slammed down.

Reeking darkness closed around them. Almost against his will, Clark's sensitive nose analyzed each aspect of the aroma: banana peels, dirty diapers, rotting cabbage, semen-stained tissues, and beer mingled into an unholy incense. He could hear Renee and Bruce's shallow breaths near him. Without thinking, he reached out and brushed Bruce's arm. "Just like old times, huh?" he barely whispered.

Bruce grabbed his hand and squeezed it silently.

There were heavy, grating footsteps on the pavement nearby. "You kids see a couple of boys and a girl come running this way? All of 'em dark-haired, the girl's Hispanic, wearing a baseball cap?" growled a voice.

Sounds of animated conversation. "I was checking out that handsome guy in the Corvette, I wouldn't have noticed," said Marc. "Sophie, how about you?"

"No, man, I don't think anyone like that's come by lately."

"Look, there's a twenty in it for anyone willing to remember where they went."

"Wait, I think I saw 'em," announced one of the other boys. "Three kids, right? They ran by, took a left onto Washington. Or maybe--" He hesitated. "I mean, she didn't have a baseball cap, and--"

A growl of frustration. "That'll do," said Mannheim's man.

The kids launched into a discussion of the cute guy in the Corvette and whether he'd been actually cruising, whether he was likely to come back soon. After a fair amount of that, Marc said in a different voice, "Thanks, Ruby." He knocked lightly on the dumpster and opened the lid. "Ruby trailed them for a few blocks, she says they're safely gone."

They scrambled out of the dumpster. Marc held his nose, looking them up and down. "Jesus, man," he said to Bruce. "I hardly recognized you at first, but now you're looking like the Tony I know." He sniffed and mimed an elaborate shudder. "Smell like him, too."

Bruce cuffed him on the shoulder. "I owe you one."

"Don't be stupid," Marc said. "Go."

A quick jog and four blocks later, they stood outside the Gotham City Police Department headquarters. Renee was pale, her face uncertain. "I don't know..."

"I know the police can't always be trusted," said Clark. "But take the tape to Jim Gordon. Insist on Gordon, no one else. He'll listen. And he'll get you help. Won't he, Tony--" He turned and discovered he and Renee were alone on the sidewalk. After a moment, he smiled. "He's gone to keep an eye on your family," he said with absolute certainty. "Until the police get there."

"My family..."

"You can help them best by getting the police involved," Clark said. "Gordon will help you. I swear."

She nodded, her jaw set, and Clark watched her climb the steps of the building and disappear inside. Then he went back, retracing their steps, until he came to the Mireles house. Sure enough, there was Bruce on a nearby roof, watching the house, standing guard.

Carefully, quietly, Clark climbed to the roof to crouch beside Bruce. They said nothing, each of them merely nodding as their eyes met. Together they watched over the Mireles family until a police car arrived with Jim Gordon to take them to a safe house. Bruce sighed, a small sound like a weight had been lifted from him. They slipped from the roof before the police arrived to sweep the surroundings for Mannheim's man, and headed home together in silence through the deepening night.

**: : :**

Clark woke up to the sound of rain pounding on the windows, feeling well-scrubbed and satisfied. He'd taken a scalding hot shower the night before, scouring the reek of the dumpster off himself before his mother could notice. He stretched, feeling a smile on his face. He and Bruce had helped the Mireles family, hindered Mannheim's efforts to expand his influence into Gotham, and kept Cobblepot from going free before his time was up.

All in all, a good night's work.

As he pulled on his jeans, Clark wondered why he felt so much more satisfaction with last night's events than with almost anything he'd done with the Legion. Maybe it was because he had protected his home instead of some futuristic city or distant planet. Maybe because it was as Clark rather than Superboy.

Maybe because it was with Bruce.

It felt so _natural_ , facing danger side by side with his friend. So right. Like pieces of a puzzle, coming together.

Clark shook his head, trying to banish that sense of certainty. This wasn't a lark like the Legion, where everyone had some kind of bizarre super-powers. Bruce couldn't shoot lightning, or go invisible, or shrink, or...bounce. Superboy was never going to charge into battle side by side with his trusty teammate...Gotham Guy. Or Orphan Lad. Or Billionare Boy.

He was rolling his eyes at himself (and mentally designing possible costumes for Billionaire Boy) as he grabbed an umbrella, tucked _Foundation and Empire_ under his arm, and headed out to the gazebo.

As he passed the statue at the heart of the moon garden, giving it a friendly wave as usual, his steps slowed. Under the drenching rain he could hear the sound of steady, hoarse breathing, harsh with exertion.

He rounded the corner to see Bruce Wayne doing push-ups in the gazebo.

Bruce was wearing jeans and his Gray Ghost t-shirt, slicked tight to his body with rain and sweat His face was tight with pain, distant and rapt, unaware of his friend, the rain, of anything but his own endless movement. His panting breaths shrieked across Clark's nerves, tearing at him. There was a kind of ecstasy in Bruce's expression, a transcendent agony.

The umbrella dropped from Clark's hands and he was moving across the grass and up the stairs, too fast, but he couldn't slow down, couldn't bear it for another moment. "Stop it," he said, grabbing at Bruce's shoulders, feeling the exhausted muscles screaming beneath his touch, "Stop it, stop it, _stop it_."

Bruce tried to throw Clark's hands off with an impatient movement, flipping over onto his back, but Clark held on, as if he could somehow halt Bruce's headlong self-annihilation like he could halt spaceships and bullet trains. "What are you _doing_?" cried Clark into the thunder of rain on the roof, into the anguish on Bruce's face.

"I wasn't good enough," said Bruce. "Wasn't strong enough." His hands rose to shove at Clark. "I was _weak_. She almost died, I was weak and she could have _died_ \--" A sharp hitch of breath, " _\--you could have died--_ "

"Weak?" Clark didn't let go, couldn't let go. The rain was a constant drumroll in his ears, and he couldn't tell if he was going to laugh or cry. "Weak? You? The most amazing, impossible, stubborn-- You could never be-- not you, Bruce." His breath caught in his throat. "Bruce." The name came out deep with yearning, heavy with everything he had tried to hide and deny and couldn't any longer.

Bruce had gone very still, staring at him. Clark was suddenly very aware of the closeness of their bodies, his hands on Bruce's shoulders. He had one leg between Bruce's, and if he just leaned forward a little he'd be able to press against him...

Bruce shifted suddenly under him and Clark released his hold to let him go, to let him get away from the invasive, unwelcome touch. Bruce pushed--but he pulled, too, and somehow then it was Clark on his back, with Bruce leaning over him, his face no longer anguished and abstracted. Not at all.

"Clark," he whispered. It was almost a question. He moved his hips and Clark couldn't help it, he groaned out loud and arched up against the contact, feeling himself hard against his jeans, hard against Bruce's body. "Clark," gasped Bruce, his eyes falling half-closed. He pushed back against Clark, and Clark could feel--

Thunder and lightning didn't crack the skies open, but Clark couldn't have been more stunned if they had. Bruce's hands were bunched in his rain-splattered flannel shirt, and he rocked against Clark's body again, and he was as hard as Clark was, he _wanted_ Clark to touch him.

He wanted him.

Clark's hands left Bruce's shoulders--he didn't seem to be doing it himself, he was still thunderstruck, still reeling--and went to his waist, pushing up the soaking t-shirt, feeling muscles and ribs under his hands, cool skin as he slid upward.

Bruce made a throaty sound in his throat and his head fell back. "Ah," he said, and Clark could feel his erection harden more, urgent between them. "You-- You--" Clark's hands shifted upward again, but Bruce halted them, shuddering. _"You,"_ he said like a revelation, and started unbuttoning Clark's shirt, his fingers oddly awkward and fumbling.

He shouldn't let Bruce see his body, Clark thought as if from very far away, as if underwater, with the rain all around them. Because there was no way it was the body of a high school nerd, he knew that. He shouldn't--

Bruce's fingers were on his skin, lower and lower with each button, and thoughts of secret identities fled Clark's mind entirely, leaving only a ravening need for Bruce to see him, to touch him, to--Oh God--

Bruce bent to lick one of his nipples and Clark bucked helplessly against him, a groan torn from his throat. _"Yes,_ " he heard his voice saying. He pulled at Bruce's t-shirt with clumsy, desperate hands, needing to get it off, needing to feel Bruce's skin against his.

Bruce made a breathy sound as he pulled Clark close against his bare chest, as Clark wrapped his arms around him. Clark's senses were stuttering with ecstasy, keenly aware of every single inch of Bruce's skin against his. Bruce rocked against him and Clark bit his lip hard as the movement almost sent him right over the edge. "Don't--" he gasped.

Bruce looked wildly at him, his silver-blue eyes almost violet in the dimness. "I'm sorry," he said, starting to pull back. "I just--I'm sorry--I won't--"

Clark grabbed him before he could get far. "No," he managed, desperate to explain, struggling for words. Everything seemed a new, foreign language. "If you do that much more I'll--I'll come," he managed.

The wariness lifted from Bruce's face, and an almost smug smile, touched with a sensuality that made Clark hunger to kiss it, replaced it.

"Is that such a bad thing?" Bruce whispered. His hand ghosted down Clark's chest and to his belt, slipping under the waistband. Clark's whole body jerked and he made a strangled sound. "I don't think that's such a bad thing," Bruce said. He slid a finger up and down the length of Clark's jeans-clad erection, then undid the button on Clark's fly. The zipper came down agonizingly slowly. "But I promise I won't do anything unless you ask me to," Bruce murmured.

Clark gasped and pushed up against Bruce's hand, but the touch receded before him.

"I promise I won't do anything unless you ask me to," Bruce repeated.

Words clogged Clark's throat. "Touch--touch me," he stammered.

Bruce smiled slightly. "But you said you'd come if I did that."

"Yes," groaned Clark. "Yes."

Bruce's fingers brushed white cotton--Clark wished he'd worn more exotic underwear, wished he _had_ more exotic underwear--but didn't exactly touch. Instead he kissed Clark, hard and demanding, and Clark kissed him back as through he knew what he was doing, his body clamoring for more contact, more friction, more _Bruce._

Bruce moved his mouth to Clark's ear, a sharp nibble on his earlobe. Clark could feel Bruce pushing hard against his hip, moving in slow, grinding circles that seemed almost involuntary. His hand was still hovering, not touching, and Bruce's breath was ragged in his ear.

"I want to make you come," he whispered. "I want to touch you and rub you and get you so crazy--" His voice caught and he shoved hard against Clark, jeans scraping together, "--Make it so you can't help it, you're so close, oh God, so close--" He was breathing hard, rocking against Clark, making small noises in his throat that made it hard for Clark to think at all.

"Please," Clark said. "I want it. _Need_ it."

"You _do_." Bruce's voice was a growl of triumph, and then his hand was fondling Clark's cock through the white cotton, not gently, Bruce was touching him and Clark made a noise that was probably well beyond Bruce's range of hearing.

The breath in his ear was a ragged pant now, and the friction against his hip had gone from languorous to sharp, hard thrusts. "You're so hard," Bruce groaned against his cheek. "So good, you feel so _good_ , Clark, my Clark--"

As if saying the name had triggered it, his whole body went suddenly rigid, his eyes wide with surprise and then with obliterating pleasure. Breath stuttered between his teeth, a rushing "Ah!" of shock as he rocked wildly against Clark.

It was the pure surprised sensuousness of his face in orgasm, as much as his strong and coaxing hand, that tipped Clark over the edge as well, and for a while there was nothing in the world but exquisite sensation and the sound of his own voice saying Bruce's name in turn.

Nothing.

**: : :**

Bruce lay across Clark's chest, feeling it rise and fall. He drew lazy circles across the damp white cotton with his thumb, savoring the shiver that ran through Clark's body at the touch. His own body was still ringing with the delicious aftershocks of his unexpected climax, and he felt more relaxed and comfortable than he had in a long time.

So it was a particular surprise when Clark sat up, avoiding his eyes, and zipped up his pants with a grimace, then started buttoning his shirt.

"Alfred and your mother never come out here while we're reading," Bruce pointed out. "We can...do what we want." What he wanted was to have all that warm, muscled skin up against him again. What he wanted was to kiss Clark for an hour or two.

"For now," Clark muttered indistinctly. "But you'll be leaving again soon, won't you? You're not staying here. I just think it wouldn't be...practical to get too...used to this kind of thing." He finished buttoning his shirt, looking resolute and unhappy.

"Are you ashamed?" Bruce asked without thinking, and Clark's eyes flashed angrily.

 _"No."_ He took a deep breath. "I've known I was attracted to--to guys--for a long time now. That's not it at all." He shook his head. "I just worry it'll mess up our friendship if we get physically involved and then..."

"We won't let it," Bruce asserted. "Besides," he added hastily as Clark looked dubious, "You're going to Metropolis soon for college, right?"

"In the fall, yes, but--"

"--Then I promise you," Bruce said. "I promise you that I won't leave again until you're gone. You can be the one to leave me behind this time, Clark," he said, hearing a pleading tone in his voice, unable to banish it. "That's an opportunity you can't pass up."

A smile flicked at the corner of Clark's mouth. "Bruce Wayne, that's the most insane bargain I've ever heard."

"It's the best one I have. Look, you know we're both leaving soon. Let's have one summer together and--and enjoy it."

"No strings attached?"

Bruce shook his head. "Don't be silly." He put a hand on Clark's shoulder and squeezed. "I intend to always have strings attached to my best friend. Just--no worrying about the future for a little bit." Almost against his will, he lifted his hand to brush a finger against Clark's earlobe; Clark leaned into the touch as if he couldn't help it. "I want you, Clark Kent," he said, watching Clark bite his lip. "I want to argue with you about books and prune roses with you and kiss you senseless and touch you--" His voice shook in a way it never had when practicing urbane seduction in Europe and he broke off, almost afraid to keep talking.

Clark's eyes were half-closed as he turned his head to let his lips brush the inside of Bruce's wrist. " _Stranger in a Strange Land_ is a better novel than _Dune,_ " he murmured.

Bruce fought back a gust of surprised laughter. "That's--that's crazy talk," he said. "The ecological extrapolation alone makes _Dune_ \--"

Clark kissed the argument from his lips.

They lay for a long time, just kissing, the rain on the roof a counterpoint to the long, slow exploration of their mouths. After a time, Bruce pulled back and reached out to take off Clark's glasses. "I want to see your eyes again," he said. Alarm flicked across Clark's face, but then suddenly he relaxed and smiled, a bit ruefully. His unobscured eyes were the same startling deep-sky blue Bruce remembered, like a limitless horizon. "You're gorgeous," Bruce said, and they widened in surprise.

"Stop it," muttered Clark, burying his face against Bruce's bare collarbone. Bruce put his face against his damp hair and breathed in the scent of him, feeling Clark's tentative lips nuzzling his skin.

"I have an idea," Clark said against his shoulder after a long, quiet moment.

Bruce made an interrogative sound.

"If we get carried away with boyish high spirits and wrestle on the lawn a bit..." Clark paused and Bruce could feel his lips curl, "...our clothes will get soaked and muddy all over and Ma and Alfred won't notice any...specific stains."

Bruce pulled back far enough to meet Clark's laughing eyes. "Have you always been so devious, or is this a recent development?"

"I learned from the master," Clark said solemnly. Then he scrambled upright. "Can't catch me," he announced, bolting from the gazebo into the pounding rain as Bruce growled imprecations, yanking on his t-shirt and following.

He tackled Clark on the slippery grass, both of them sprawling together into a tangle of limbs and spray and mud, hands groping in something that was almost innocent play. Bruce managed to get a good hard squeeze of Clark's behind, and Clark yelped once in shocked, sincere protest, then made a startled sound of revelation and grabbed Bruce's hand to put it back, yanking him closer into a rain-soaked kiss.

They each went home sopping wet and filthy, cheerful and smiling like lunatics, feeling very clever and knowing Alfred and Martha would have no evidence anything had changed between them.

**: : :**

Martha Kent listened to Clark loudly singing Barry White songs in the shower ( _"Tell me, what can I say? What am I gonna do? How should I feel when everything is you?_ ") and raised her eyebrows, pouring his milk. When Clark emerged in his bathrobe to plant a kiss on her cheek and announce that he'd had a _fantastic_ morning and this was going to be a _fantastic_ summer, she just shook her head and hid her smile.

**: : :**

Alfred Pennyworth brought the freshly-folded laundry upstairs to find Bruce sitting in the bay window, looking out at the torrents of rain gusting across the gardens. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Alfred," Bruce said. "How did my parents fall in love? Was it, you know, love at first sight for them? Or were they..." He frowned. "Were they friends first?"

Alfred put the laundry down on a nearby chair and sat down next to Bruce in the bay window. "Your father used to claim he fell in love with your mother at first sight, but she always laughed and said that was romantic nonsense. She said she thought he was ridiculous at first, but that over time she came to respect and like him, and then more."

"When did she realize she was in love with him?"

"She said she never knew, that there was no clear moment of revelation. 'Like how twilight shifts into night and you realize the stars have been shining for some time,' she said once. Your mother had a gift for words."

Bruce nodded slowly, staring out the window. "I see."

After a while Alfred patted him lightly on the knee and left him alone with his thoughts, looking out at where the storm was tossing the trees so the front light of the Kent bungalow shone out fitfully, like a star through clouds.

[(Chapter 33)](http://mithen.livejournal.com/132158.html)


	10. Event Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scenes from a summer.

Running home from school, up the drive, struggling to run normally when he could _be there already_ and it had been _all day_ since--

He saw him waiting at the gate of the moon garden, and then they were inside its tall hedges, safe from the world. Hands shaking to pull him close into the first kiss of the day, the best one.

The second one was better.

For the first month, they did nothing but kiss.

**: : :**

"I will not tolerate it a moment longer, Master Bruce." Bruce looked up, startled, at Alfred's vehement tone, to find the butler holding a pair of scissors. "Perhaps you are content to look like a teenage werewolf, but I insist on a trim. Soon you will have to pull it back in a ponytail, and _that_ is simply beyond the pale, sir." When Bruce didn't leap into action, Alfred said, with the air of someone playing his trump card, "You need to look your best for Master Clark, do you not?"

Bruce almost dropped his book. "What?"

"Aren't you going to his graduation in a few weeks?" Alfred's frown was ominous. "I can't imagine you wouldn't want to look presentable."

"Oh." Bruce relaxed again. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I am." Alfred bustled him into the kitchen and sat him down on a stool. "Hold still."

Bruce closed his eyes and listened to the crisp silvery sound of the scissors, felt Alfred's presence hovering near him. "You haven't asked me if I'll be staying this time," he said.

The busy scissors didn't pause. "It's not my business, sir."

Bruce frowned, feeling a flicker of unexpected anger. "Of _course_ it's your business. You're always here for me, always taking care of me, you're--you're my only family."

The scissors slowed, stopped. For a moment, Alfred rested both hands on his shoulders. "My dear boy," he said. Bruce could hear him swallow in the silence that followed. Then the scissors went back to work, more slowly this time. "I have always wondered," Alfred said, "If I should have insisted on going with you to Europe. Or even to Milton. Your parents made me your guardian, but I have--failed to guard you well, I fear."

Bruce kept his eyes closed, feeling suddenly almost shy. He and Alfred had never talked about things like this. They'd never seemed to need to. "But I always knew," he said haltingly, "That--that you were here if I needed you. That you'd always be there for me."

"As long as I live." Five simple words, but Alfred made them sound like a vow.

"I might--" Bruce hesitated. The vision of the future loomed large and dark and formless before him. "I might not live the life my parents would have wanted. I might not come home to get married and have kids and give garden parties."

"Master Bruce." Alfred's voice had an edge of irony to it. "You were unlikely at any time to live a boring life. Believe it or not, I have made my peace with that."

"It might be--dangerous."

"I have made my peace with that as well."

"I might need a lot of help."

The laughter was very close to the surface now. "Master Bruce, I am an _extremely peaceful man._ " There was a final flurry of snipping noises. "There. You look presentable now."

He held up a hand mirror and Bruce blinked at his reflection. He looked like a young businessman. Admittedly, a slightly emaciated young businessman. "Thank you," he said, meeting Alfred's eyes in the mirror.

Alfred looked away, busying himself with putting away the barber's tools. "I live to serve. We shall speak no more of it," he announced.

Bruce stared at himself in the mirror. When had he become an adult?

How had he become an adult without accomplishing anything he had set out to do ten years ago? Was it too late? Had he wasted the last decade?

It couldn't be too late.

**: : :**

They did nothing but kiss because sometimes kissing was overwhelming enough, sometimes it frightened him how the world could narrow to nothing but touch and breath and the rush of sensation. A mere hand on the hip was fodder for deliciously fevered dreams: the way the index fingers brushed the edge of the jeans pocket, the way the thumb rested on a hard hipbone, so tantalizingly near other hardness. There were countless ways to kiss and he intended to try them all.

"You cut your hair."

"Alfred did, actually."

"You _cut your hair._ "

"You sound disappointed."

"I liked touching it."

A silence broken only by breathing.

"I can kiss the nape of your neck now."

"Yes. Yes, you can."

**: : :**

Clark was still asleep when there was a _thump_ and something heavy landed on top of him. He startled awake, half-dreaming that he was fighting Cosmic King, but realized where he was before he threw his assailant across the room.

Which was good because it was Bruce, a newspaper clutched in one hand, straddling him on the bed with a fierce grin on his face.

Straddling him _on his bed--!_

Clark struggled to a sitting position. "Bruce!" he hissed. "My mother!"

"She's out working in the _parterre_ garden, don't worry," Bruce said. He bent and kissed Clark's neck, swift as a striking falcon. "Look at the news." He held up the newspaper, folded to the headline: _"Former Juror to Testify Against Mannheim"_.

"What? Let me see," said Clark, for a moment forgetting the alluring presence of Bruce on his lap.

Bruce opened the paper. "Mireles is going to testify that Mannheim threatened him to make him recant his verdict. He and his family have entered the Witness Protection Program."

"They'll have to leave Gotham, be given a new name," Clark said. "That's hard, leaving everything you know." A memory rose up in his mind for a moment: the scent of hay and the sour smell of the cows mingled, their lowing a part of the morning song.

Bruce brushed his lower lip with a thumb, his eyes sympathetic. "Renee will come back someday. I can tell. She belongs here." For a moment his eyes held that familiar gleam of possessive pride that always made Clark feel a little sad he didn't seem to have that bond to Gotham. Then he bent to nibble Clark's lower lip, letting the touch shift slowly to a deep kiss.

Eventually Clark broke the contact. "Geez, Bruce, what if my mother comes in?" He pushed Bruce gently off of him and climbed out of bed, trying not to show how reluctant he was to leave the embrace. "I'd better get dressed."

Bruce bounced on the bed very slightly. "Yes, you do that," he said.

Clark crossed his arms and looked at him.

"What?"

Clark felt his face heating up. "I'm not--You're not--"

Bruce's smile was both impish and sly. "Come on, Clark, it's not like I haven't seen it all before. This is your old buddy Bruce, remember? The one you used to go skinny dipping with?"

"We were _eight!_ It's a little different now."

"Is it really?" Bruce raised curious eyebrows and moved his gaze downward. "How so? I mean, obviously bigger, I can tell that much, but--"

 _"Bruce!_ " Clark spoiled his outrage by starting to snicker uncontrollably. "Well, since you're so curious..." He hooked his thumbs in his pajama bottoms and slid them down an inch.

Bruce's eyes widened.

The screen door slammed.

Bruce was out of the bedroom almost faster than even Clark's eyes could follow. "Good morning, Mrs. Kent!" he chirped from the kitchen as Clark eased the door shut, heart pounding.

He was dressed a few minutes later and joined them in the kitchen, where his mother was pouring herself a cup of coffee and talking with Bruce about his plans. "Asia this time, I think," he was saying. "Japan, China, maybe Nepal."

"Oh my, that's so far away," Martha said with dismay. "Will you be leaving soon?"

Bruce shot a quick smiling glance at Clark. "Not until at least September. I want to spend the whole summer here."

Clark was glad his mother was looking down at a seed catalog and not at his flushed face at that moment. She finished up her coffee, rumpled Clark's hair, and invited Bruce to stay for supper, since Alfred was taking the night off to go to the movies with Dr. Thompkins. Then she was off to the gardens again.

"So what's on the agenda for today?" Bruce asked. "I have to go back and go over some Manor finances with Alfred, but I'll be done with that before lunch."

"I need to re-gravel the walks in the moon garden. Once I'm done with that, I'll be free to, um, to read," Clark said.

"Can I borrow that Sagan book when you're done with it? It looks interesting," Bruce said. When Clark nodded, he leaned in and kissed him--a kiss that was somehow more thrilling for being so matter-of-fact and casual. "I'll meet you over in the pine barrens? It's quiet there."

**: : :**

Rough tree bark against his back. Books tumbled on the ground forgotten. A blue jay shrieked and fell silent. Clark slipped his hands into Bruce's jeans pocket and Bruce could feel his fingers stroking, yearning, making it difficult to think at all. "So good," Clark murmured. "You feel so good." There were rusty pine needles in his hair and his eyes were dark with longing. Bruce pulled him close, grinding their hips together, pushing his leg between Clark's until Clark's mouth fell open and he made that sharp abandoned sound that Bruce would hear in his dreams for the next four years. He gasped and pushed hard against Bruce until his head dropped onto Bruce's shoulder as if exhausted.

"Damn you," he muttered into Bruce's shirt, his voice blurry and content.

"Hey, it's not my fault I have more self-control than you," Bruce said.

Clark's head came up and Bruce realized what the gleam in his eye was only as Clark was fumbling at his jeans button, and then pulling down his fly, and--Bruce heard himself moan as Clark wrapped a warm hand around his erection, Clark was _touching him_ , and he hardly had time to register the fact before he was long past thinking. At some point during the climax his knees gave out and he eventually find himself sitting on the ground with Clark straddling him, looking quite pleased with himself. "Yep, you're Mr. Self Control," he smirked.

"Hnh," said Bruce, mostly because he was still too dazed to think of a snappy comeback.

"And look what I remembered," Clark announced, producing a small pack of tissues from his discarded jacket.

"Okay, you win," Bruce said.

Cleaned up and (mostly) recovered, they sat for a while under the tree, their arms around each other, listening to the birds and squirrels chatter. Bruce found himself tracing the "L" on Clark's gold ring. "You haven't seen your friends for ages," he said.

"Oh." Clark was silent for a moment. "About them." He seemed suddenly to be struggling for words. "They're--I'm--" He stopped and took a long breath. "They're...not as important to me as you are," he said finally, as if he had wanted to say something else but couldn't bring himself to do so. He muttered something that sounded like a curse under his breath.

"Hey, it's okay," said Bruce. He felt embarrassed at his jealousy now, since Clark had barely left his side all summer. Whatever this group was, it was clear they were no threat to what Clark and Bruce had together. "I hung out with Marc and the other kids you saw. You have your League."

"Legion," blurted Clark. "They call themselves the Legion. I wouldn't--" He ducked his head, hair falling across his eyes. "--There's only ever been one League."

Bruce lifted his hand and traced the gold "L" with his lips. L for laughter. L for lust and light and loyalty and--

\--And everything else, he finished hurriedly before pulling Clark into another kiss.

**: : :**

Superboy was sitting with his chin propped in his hand, staring out of the Legion headquarters window with a distinctly dreamy smile on his face. Saturn Girl waved a hand in front of his face. "Saturn to Superboy," she said.

"Oh, Imra, I'm sorry," he said. "What were you saying?"

"Well, I _was_ talking about the Legion election and who might win, but your thoughts seem to be elsewhere."

Superboy looked chagrined. "I'm sorry, I've been so--"

"--Distracted," she finished. "That's okay, Kal. It's been really quiet around here lately, no major emergencies. We only called you in to vote in the election, we know you're busy. You're heading to college soon, that's got to be almost as distracting as being in love."

"I'm really nervous about school," he admitted. "All the packing, and living in a dorm, and--wait, what?" He stared at her. "What was that about me being in--in--" He broke off and his eyes narrowed. "Have you been reading my mind?"

"What? No, I'd never do that!" she said vehemently. "Well, besides the sort of...really loud thoughts that are...kind of hard to block out sometimes." She noticed the tips of Superboy's ears were turning red and she added hurriedly, "But mostly I just kind of assumed, from the way you were acting--I'm really sorry, Superboy!"

Superboy's blush had spread to his entire face by now, but he smiled ruefully and shook his head. "That's okay, Imra," he said. "It's--it's okay." He let out a long breath. "It's a funny thing, you know? It can just sneak up on you, I guess."

"What, love?"

"Yeah," he said. "That."

**: : :**

The dark t-shirt was soaked with sweat, sticking to Bruce's chest in fascinating ways. His breath was coming in great gasps as he threw himself down on the grass next to Clark. Clark clicked the stopwatch and checked it. "Six minutes the first mile, eight the second, and eleven the third."

"Better," said Bruce after catching his breath. "I want to get the total down to twenty-one minutes." He rolled over and started to do push ups, but Clark knocked his hands out from under him and sent him tumbling.

"Time to rest."

Bruce made an annoyed sound that shifted into something else as Clark kissed him. "Granted, your incentives for resting are pretty compelling," he said breathlessly as the kiss broke.

"You can train to get stronger, but I'm not letting you kill yourself," Clark said, catching up Bruce's hands and kissing the fingers, tasting sweat and grass. He moved his mouth to the wrist, feeling the sweet murmur of life beneath his lips.

He kissed the crook of Bruce's elbow and Bruce flinched away, covering up the fading scars with his other hand.

There was a long pause, and then Bruce laughed shortly, an uncomfortable sound. "That was a stupid thing to do," he said, looking down at his arm.

Clark cocked his head to the side, considering. "I think crazy is a better description."

"Okay, stupid _and_ crazy," Bruce said. He pushed himself away from Clark and looked away over the long, sloping lawn to where Wayne Manor sprawled in its decadent luxury. "I did it four times," he said. "Enough to get physically hooked." He rubbed at the crooks of his elbows. "It was easy," he said. "Warm, and nothing hurt, and I was safe and happy. A beautiful lie." He sighed, a long, slow sound. "And when it comes right down to it, I still don't understand what drives someone to it. I experienced the physical reactions, but not the--the despair. The need to escape suffering. I always had..." He paused. "Things to hold on to." He reached out and grasped Clark's arm without looking at him, his eyes cast down. "I always had hope to hold on to."

Clark put his arm around him, and after a while Bruce relaxed into his touch, leaning against him. Clark held him close, not really understanding, not really needing to. It was enough to be together for a while.

**: : :**

Martha Kent hung up the phone as Clark came in. "Oh, good timing," he said. "That was Rebecca."

Clark poured himself a glass of milk. "How are things going?"

"Well, there are some minor complications. Nothing major," she added hastily. "The doctor told her not to worry about it. But...I offered to go there and help out for a few weeks. Cook and clean, give her time to settle in with the baby. Mr. Pennyworth has told me for years I can take a vacation."

"All the way to St. Louis?" Clark tried to hide his spike of panic at the idea of having to leave Gotham--leave _Bruce_ \--for even a day. "But I need to pack for college and--and--"

Martha smiled. "I wouldn't expect you to come with me, Clark. Besides, I'd need someone to take care of the gardens while I was gone."

Clark tried to keep his expression neutral while inside his thoughts were churning--mainly with the realization that he might have two weeks of not worrying his mother might walk in on him and Bruce. Luckily, she had no idea something was up between them, or she would never consider leave him alone for so long.

"I can do that!" he said. "Though I'll miss you," he added maybe just a touch belatedly.

"And I will miss you too, little Star," Martha said. "But you're eighteen years old--even putting aside your time with the Legion, you're no child. You're a responsible adult who I can trust."

"Um, right!" said Clark, unsure whether helping kids flee hit men or making out with his best friend was a greater breach of responsibility.

Martha shook her head, laughter lurking in her eyes. "I need to talk to Mr. Pennyworth and then start packing. I'll make a list of things you need to get done while I'm gone."

**: : :**

A patch of sunlight falling across Clark's throat; Bruce kissed it, breathing in the scent of warm skin. Clark stirred and pulled the blankets up over both of their heads, trapping them in a cocoon of cloth together. The sunlight filtered through the blue flannel, filling their refuge with an unearthly blue glow.

Bruce was in bed with Clark. There was something different about being in a bed together rather than on a bench or the ground, Bruce thought. It was cozier. Also, sexier. It was right there in the verb: _to bed._

Bruce contemplated the idea of bedding Clark and couldn't resist slinging a leg over Clark's hip and pulling him closer. Bruce was in jeans, but Clark was still in his flannel pajamas, and Bruce strongly suspected he wasn't wearing any underwear beneath them. The thought pulled a small noise out of him, like a startled _whuffle_.

"Mmm," said Clark, and kissed him.

Bruce couldn't seem to stop his hands from slipping under the pajamas to Clark's bare back, warm with sleep and sun. They slid down slowly, slowly, inch by inch, until they encountered the waistband. A quick exploration quickly determined that indeed, there was nothing under those pajamas. The knowledge seemed to freeze him in place, even as he cursed his clumsiness--he'd always been so glib and skilled when it didn't matter, so why was he an awkward, groping idiot _now_?

"Mm," Clark said again, and shifted under Bruce so that Bruce's hands ended up substantially lower than before. There was a lot of warm skin under Bruce's palms, and--God, _muscles_. He squeezed experimentally and Clark gasped and opened his mouth more and Bruce felt like he couldn't possibly get deep enough to be satisfied, ever.

"Touch me," said Clark as the kiss ended. "Please."

"I'm--I am touching you," Bruce stammered.

Clark chuckled and tensed his hips, sending delightful shocks of motion shuddering Bruce's hands. "Touch me everywhere," Clark clarified.

Bruce made an inarticulate noise that sounded desperate in his own ears, but his hands didn't move. The idea of being that intimate with Clark--with _Clark!_ \--seemed to paralyze him utterly. The concept was too big, too hot, too...frightening. An expanding sun that could engulf a solar system, setting everything ablaze. "I want to," he managed after a moment.

"Mmmm," Clark said, his voice sleepy and relaxed. "We've got time." He snuggled up against Bruce, trailing kisses along his neck, seemingly content.

Bruce, however, was not. Because based on his calendar with a late-August day circled in ominous red, they didn't have time. Clark would be leaving the Manor soon. Leaving _him_ soon. The thought made him feel like things were falling apart, like he was falling apart inside.

He wrapped himself around Clark as if that would hold him together.

**: : :**

It was harder now, with his mother back. They'd gotten used to having the bungalow to themselves, and now it was difficult to not be able to kiss Bruce whenever he wanted to. Clark listening to his mother in the kitchen cooking, looked at Bruce perched on his bed next to his shabby old suitcase, and sighed slightly.

"You're not leaving for eleven more days," said Bruce. He was frowning, his arms crossed, and looked possibly even more adorable than when he was smiling. "There's no reason to pack so early."

"It makes Ma nervous if I don't start packing way in advance," Clark said, folding an argyle sweater.

"Are you really bringing _that?_ " Bruce said.

"What's wrong with my sweater?"

"The color's all wrong for you. It makes you look washed-out. And the cut's bad. If you wear that, no one will look at you twice." Bruce stopped and pondered for a moment. "On second thought, pack that." He hopped off the bed and started rummaging through Clark's closet. "Do you have anything else in that color?"

Clark wasn't sure whether to laugh or blush, so he settled for touching the back of Bruce's hand, a fleeting contact. Then he picked up a long, thin box from the desk. "Can't forget this," he said, snapping it open to show Bruce the little letter opener.

"Hey, my present," said Bruce, his voice pleased.

"As if I'd begin my illustrious career as a reporter without it," Clark said. "I need to get you a matching one sometime, since we lost the original." He flashed a quick smile at Bruce. "Then we could duel each other with them."

Bruce laughed, a surprised bark. "You're a romantic," he said.

"And you're not?"

An aloof and haughty look. "Don't be ridiculous," Bruce said. Then he sneaked a quick glance toward the kitchen and pulled Clark into a corner for a kiss, apparently unaware that his fervor contradicted his words.

**: : :**

The entrance to the little cave in the cliff wall seemed smaller than it had been ten years ago; Bruce could wriggle through but Clark struggled a bit, cursing, and Bruce had to to tug at him until they both broke down into giggles in the dark.

When Clark finally got in, they stumbled and crawled together in the blackness to the flat stone near the back. There was no light at all, the darkness an absolute void all around them, but Bruce didn't find the darkness terrifying anymore.

Clark was leaving tomorrow.

Bruce's world was narrowed down to only the touch of Clark's hand in his, and then Clark's lips, greedy and giving, and for a moment Bruce let it narrow. In the dark, Clark's breathing seemed louder. Hands slipped under Bruce's shirt, brushing up along his ribs, and Bruce didn't even try to repress the shudder of desire and delight that rippled through him at the touch.

"I don't want to go," Clark whispered, a tiny thread of sound in the dark.

"You need to."

"I know." A silence broken only by soft wet breaths, by clumsy blind touches. "Remember we swore we'd be best friends forever, right here?"

"Yes."

"Will we be? Bruce, will we?"

Things had been uncomplicated then; now everything was a snarl of emotions and needs and things Bruce could hardly bear to look at. He wasn't sure friends felt like this about each other, but if friends didn't feel like this, he didn't want to be Clark's friend. He wanted to feel like this forever, shaking with a need to keep Clark close, to touch him, to share everything with him--his thoughts, his dreams, his body. Too big, too strong: a black hole with an event horizon long passed, a supernova with a shock wave as fast as light itself.

Words failed him in the face of the titanic forces ripping at him. So instead he kissed Clark again, his hands fumbling down Clark's chest and lower, to find a button and then a zipper, the small sound loud in the silence of the cave. He tugged and Clark breathed in, almost a gasp, and lifted his hips, the jeans sliding downward at Bruce's pull.

He slid his hands up along Clark's thighs to find the underwear and pulled that down too.

"Bruce," said Clark. His voice was disembodied in the inky blackness of the cave, not even a smudge of light to indicate where his face was. Bruce could feel him shaking. "Bruce," he said again.

Bruce went down on his knees in the darkness, pushing Clark's thighs gently apart, pushing up his t-shirt until he was pressed up against Clark. Clark groaned and Bruce could feel his erection pushing against his chest, hard and insistent.

He slid downward, trailing kisses along Clark's impossibly perfect abdomen, until his mouth was at the base of Clark's cock. He licked it lightly, inhaling the scent, and Clark said, "Oh God," with a sort of blank amazement in his voice. "Oh God, are you--Bruce, you're not going to--"

Bruce wrapped one hand around him and took the head of his cock in his mouth.

Clark made a sharp noise and his hands were suddenly in Bruce's hair, trembling. His thighs were trembling too, as if he were trying to keep from surging forward.

Bruce relaxed and took Clark's whole length into his mouth.

He'd done this before, and developed a sort of remote technical skill that he was abstractly proud of. But it hadn't ever been _Clark_ , hadn't been _Clark_ panting and groaning and saying his name, and there was nothing remote or abstract about this at all. Bruce rocked forward against his own aching erection, savoring the hot silky wetness, the sound of Clark's voice. "That's--that's--oh, yes, _that_ ," Clark stuttered. "Do that, do it, do it more." Meaningless phrases, stammered into the dark, each one like a touch of rapturous electricity along Bruce's own cock.

He heard himself make a purring, throaty sound of delight, and Clark's hips bucked against him. "Bruce," Clark said, alarm staining his voice. "I think you'd better--I think I'm going to--" His hands found Bruce's shoulders in the dark, started to push him away.

Bruce shook off the touch with a growl, lost in a delirium of sensation, wanting to feel the moment he made Clark climax, needing to feel its reality. Clark made a high, lost sound, raising his hips high, and Bruce swallowed until he went limp and shaking.

Still rapt and aroused, Bruce raised his head as if to meet Clark's eyes, but of course he could see nothing, just blackness on blackness. He realized what a sight he must be, his eyes half closed and the pupils dilated with lust and darkness, face flushed with abandonment and naked need, and he was relieved for a moment Clark couldn't see him. He licked his lips with an almost wanton relish, enjoying the safety of the dark, and Clark groaned achingly.

Clark's hand touched Bruce's cheek in the dark.

Bruce leaned into it, still staring at where Clark's face would be if they could see each other. He felt his lips move without sound, silently shaping the three words he couldn't say, words he had never even let himself whisper. He wasn't sure if he was sorry or relieved that the darkness hid his face from Clark.

Then he moved up to find and capture Clark's mouth with his own.

Clark shivered against him, and when Bruce touched his face his fingers came away wet. But by the time they collected themselves and left the cave, his eyes were dry again, and Bruce decided not to bring it up.

**: : :**

The morning sun was merciless in Bruce's eyes. He stood with Alfred, watching Clark swing his last suitcase into the car trunk. Martha was in the front seat, the motor idling. It was time for Clark to go.

Clark closed the trunk, then walked slowly over to Bruce and Alfred, his feet shuffling on the driveway, his eyes down. "I'll see you again soon, Mr. Pennyworth," he said, shaking Alfred's hand. Then he turned to Bruce.

"I hope your trip to Asia goes well," he said. His voice was formal. Behind the thick glasses, his eyes were anything but. "I--I--I'll miss you." He stuck his hand out.

Alfred and Martha were watching them. Bruce took his hand, pumped it politely. "I'll think of you often," he said.

"I'm sure I'll see you when you come back."

"I'm certain of it. Good luck in classes." Clark hadn't let go of his hand, and Bruce couldn't bring himself to release that last bit of contact, that final warm touch.

Martha Kent leaned out the car window. "For heaven's sake, Clark Kent, are you going to hug him or not?"

Clark's eyebrows went up. Then he stepped forward and swept Bruce into a hug.

Bruce wrapped his arms around him and held on with all his might.

"This is hard," mumbled Clark. "I didn't think it would be so hard."

"I'll see you again," said Bruce.

Clark turned his head and pressed a hasty, clumsy kiss into Bruce's hair, blurting something out in a low voice. He turned and ran to the car, and was closing the door before Bruce realized what he had said.

He waved goodbye until the car vanished around the bend, letting the words sink into him like a stone into dark water, plunging toward his heart.

_"I love you, Bruce Wayne."_

**: : :**

The Manor seemed to ache with emptiness. The moon garden was as blank and meaningless as the moon itself. The roses nodded to no one. Even the statues gazed with fixed marble eyes at nothingness.

**: : :**

Martha Kent was coming down the path in the rose garden, humming to herself, when she rounded a corner and found Bruce Wayne sitting on a bench, staring at the twilight sky.

"Excuse me," Martha said hastily as Bruce turned to look at her. "I didn't know you were--"

"--It's all right," Bruce said. "I was just reading."

Martha decided not to mention that it was easier to read if the book were not closed and discarded on the bench beside you. Instead she moved closer and picked it up: _Cosmos_ , by Carl Sagan.

"It's Clark's book," Bruce said. "He loaned it to me."

"It's one of his favorites."

"I know. He's crazy about all that star stuff, he always has been."

Martha sat down on the bench beside Bruce, watching his profile. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the little boy who had run around playing with her son was an adult now.

"You're not?"

Bruce made an impatient gesture. "Sure, but--it's so _big_. Countless suns in countless galaxies, and even our sun is just the tiniest speck. How could--" He shook his head. "How could any of us mean anything in something that vast? Why do any of us...why do any of us matter..." His voice trailed off and he swallowed hard.

Martha put a hand on his back, the shoulders tense beneath her touch. "I miss him too," she said.

She expected him to shrug off her hand, or at best to tolerate her touch--Bruce had never been a cuddly child, and over the years he had grown downright prickly. So she was shocked when he turned into her touch and buried his head on her shoulder. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him, rocking him slightly.

"It's all so _big_ ," he said, his voice muffled by her shoulder. It might have been shaking.

Martha Kent sat with her arms around him for a long time, watching the stars come slowly into view as the skies darkened.

**: : :**

The duffel bag gaped open, only half-full. Bruce had learned to get by on very little in the last year. "Might I suggest another warm sweater?" Alfred suggested.

Bruce pulled a heavy black sweater out of the drawer and added it. "I don't need much. Yoru- _sensei_ said to bring only essentials."

"You seem skilled at paring things down to essentials," Alfred noted. "I shall go bring the car around, if you're ready to leave."

Bruce nodded. He was ready to leave. _One summer together,_ he had told Clark, and Clark had seemed okay with that. It had been all he could safely promise.

But the future was starting to come together in Bruce's mind. He'd be back someday, with the knowledge and the skill to fight for Gotham. He wasn't sure how Clark fit into that vision, but he knew that he would never be content with just the memory of that one summer.

Car wheels crunched on gravel as Alfred came up the drive. One last thing to pack.

Reaching into the back of one drawer, he pulled out a long, thin box. He ran one finger across the top of it, then opened it, the hinges stiff, as if he did this only rarely. He touched the silver letter opener inside, brushing the glass gems--dark blue where Clark's were red--like beads on a rosary.

Then he slipped the Sword of Oaths into his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and ran downstairs to meet Alfred.


End file.
